The Examination of What an Organization is

The essay begins with the examination of what an organization is. The definition of an organisation, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “An organised group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department”.

An organization may be as simple as an entity that has one or more people conducting a particular purpose, for example a one man delivery service. Daft provides a more comprehensive definition of organisations, as (1) social entities that (2) are goal-directed, (3) are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and (4) are linked to the external environment. This will be used as the basis for discussion in this essay.

It is important to highlight that firstly, an organisation is social; it is made up of people and is primarily important to the organisation. An organisation is first and foremost about people. It is not about the machines nor technology but centrally important to be about people.

Secondly, there needs to be a common goal, a particular purpose. This can be providing a service to people in terms of healthcare, protection from harm or elements or providing a product that people want. A key important distinction in the common “goal-directed” is whether the organisation is a profit-seeking business or nonprofit. An example of the nonprofit organisation is the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) where the people working in the non-profit organisation are seeking to provide a social impact. Such an organisation has no clear “bottom line” to determine the success of the organisation nor the organisational effectiveness.

Thirdly, organisations are deliberately designed systems and the heart of this leads to much discussion on the methodology and ability for cha...

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