Question

juan works for a college that offers correspondence courses. she works in the mailroom department stuffing envelopes with the replies of professors to students. she then seals the envelopes and puts them in an outgoing bin. she finds that on this job she has a lot of time for daydreaming. you would expect the organizational structure in her department should be:

• mechanistic
• organic
• high in variety
• unanalyzable

Explanation:

🆕 New Concept Discovered: Organizational Structure (Mechanistic vs. Organic)
Highly structured, repetitive tasks favor mechanistic designs.

Step 1: Analyze the nature of the job

Juan's job consists of highly repetitive, routine, and standardized tasks:

• Stuffing envelopes with replies
• Sealing the envelopes
• Placing them in an outgoing bin

Because the tasks require very little decision-making or problem-solving, Juan has a lot of free time for daydreaming. This indicates a highly routine job with low variety and high analyzability.

Step 2: Match job characteristics to organizational structures

In organizational theory, departments with highly routine, standardized, and repetitive tasks are best suited for a mechanistic structure.

• Mechanistic structures are characterized by high centralization, formalization, clear division of labor, and routine tasks.
• Organic structures are flexible, decentralized, and suited for dynamic environments with non-routine, varied tasks.
• High in variety and unanalyzable contradict the description of Juan's simple, repetitive mailroom tasks.

Therefore, we would expect the organizational structure of this department to be mechanistic.

Answer:

mechanistic