Organization Theory & Design

How does the article Understanding organizational designs of primary care practices reflect the textbook reading? How is that knowledge relevant to HCO managers today?

First off, our book goes into great detail in different aspects of organization theory, and several examples of real world organizations that have failed and succeeded from the external environment. The book also details areas such as:

• Globalization

• Ethics

• Diversity

• Defining an organization and why it exists

• Structural dimensions & Contingency factors

• Stakeholders

• Historical facts how the modern management system evolved from Henri Fayol

• Organic and Mechanistic

“There is no one best way. Contingency theory means it depends” (Daft, 2013 p. 47). I believe this quote is really the essence of what this first chapter is trying to teach us. Every organization is different and should be treated as such, and should not ignore the external environment.

The article is about a specific medical field of primary care. The article is trying to answer:

• Are practices all the same, or do variations in their organizational design exist?

• Do hospital designs predict the designs of affiliated practices?

• If variation exists, what are the management implications?

After reading both the chapter and article I can see where it seems that the article is pulling information from the book, but the article is from 2003 and the book was published in 2013. Some similar areas from the book and article are discussing organizational design theory with various models, contingency theory, and external environmental to name a few. The article also mentions “many hospitals organize management structures and functional oversight in a way that treats all practices the same…foster management approach that is notable for its singularity of design.” This is directly what the book mentions management should not due, and would be seen as a violation of contingency theory. This information is imperative for healthcare managers to learn from past mistakes as the article is mentioning and mirrors what the book is teaching. Another example I liked was that Practice M was a bureaucracy, but was open to new ideas. They were able to cooperate to bring in new processes areas like patient flow and customer satisfaction, with this change demonstrates how this practice was moving from a mechanistic to more organic model, another important factor for current managers to realize.