Introduce organization. Explain its main features.

  Mooney and Railey -"Organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.

Chester Bernard - "An organization is a system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more than two people."

Ricky W. Griffin "Organization is a group of people working together in structured and coordinated fashion to achieve a set of goals."

W. J. Duncan -"It is a collection of interacting and interdependent individuals who work towards common goals and whose relationships are determined according to a certain nature." Keith Davis -"Organization may be defined as a group of individuals, large or small, that is cooperating under the direction of executive leadership in accomplishment of the certain common object.

Jerald Greenberg "Organization is a structured social system consisting of groups and individuals working together to meet some agreed-upon objectives.

" Louis A. Allen- "Organization is the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.

" Robbins, Coulter, and Vohra "An organization has three characteristics: a distinctive purpose, composed of people, and a deliberate structure. Many of today's organizations are more open, flexible, and responsive to changes than organizations once were."

Features  of Organization

Organizations, in general, are the association of people with common objectives and efforts. They have to operate in dynamic and complex business environment with appropriate balance of authority and responsibility. Organizations bear the following common features :

1. Association of people: An organization is a social unit created by the association of two or more people having common goals to attain. They develop social relationships in the workplace while working together to achieve their common goals. The success or failure of an organization depends on their mutual understanding, co-operation and support.

2. Common goals: An organization is consciously created to attain the common goals of people associated with it. Organizations may have different goals like making a profit, wealth maximizing, creating organizational value, etc. Such common goals integrate all the members together and encourage them to demonstrate acceptable behavior in a group. Only the people having similar or common goals join together in an organization.

3. Deliberate structure: An organization is deliberate structure in which jobs and responsibilities for each person are well designed. The relationship between authority and responsibility in the organization is called organizational structure. Structure helps to distinguish the jobs of each individual and level of decision making power.

4. Coordinated activities: Efforts of all members in an organization should be coordinated to achieve predetermined goals. Coordination in functional activities creates synergy effect. Synergy is the effect which generates greater output than simple arithmetic sum of efforts i.e. with synergy; it is possible to get 2+2> 4. This indicates that with coordinated efforts, organization gets more than the sum of individual efforts.

5. Division of work: Complex organizational works are divided into small activities on the basis of homogeneity of skills required. It helps to get job specialization. People can choose the job on the basis of their skills, ability and interest while organization can assign responsibility according to person's skills, ability, experience and interest. This ensures reduced wastage, improved job satisfaction and greater commitment. Efficiency and productivity of organization can be increased through division of work.

6. Environmental influence: Each organization must operate in a dynamic and open business environment. There are many external and internal environmental factors which influence the organizational activities directly or indirectly. Changing priorities of customers, changing government rules, regulations and policies, competitor's activities, change in economic, political, socio-cultural, technological and global factors affect the organizational activities and strategies. Organization needs to change its rules, regulations and policies according to environmental changes.