INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND CLASSICAL ORGANIZATIONSBY: DEAN WINTERS

THE ARTICLE REFERENCED

• I didn’t actually find an article that pertains to the topic, however I did find the IT department responsibility page of American University which will work perfectly for this presentation.

AU’S I.T. DEPARTMENT

• Their department is split up into 4 different categories:• IT Help Desk Team- Who you would call when you first encounter a problem. They

would deal with most of the quick fix problems that most people would encounter from day to day.

• IT Technical Support Team- These are the people that come out to your site and resolve any hardware issues or problems that need to be completed by an expert.

• IT Technical Training Team- The part of the department that trains and appropriates the employees.

• IT Service Manager- The person in charge of the department overall that would handle the big decision making and extremely difficult problems.

CLASSICAL THEORIES OF ORGANIZATIONS

• The organizational systems that I’m comparing AU’s IT department to are those covered by the theorists Fayol, Weber, and Taylor’s theories of organizations.• These organizations follow the Machine Metaphor, which compares an

organization to a machine in the sense that the primary goal of the machine is to perform a task and to perform it both quickly and efficiently.• The most crucial part of the Machine Metaphor is that any part of the

machine is replaceable, so if one part starts to not work as effectively, just take it out and replace it with a new one.

MANAGEMENT IN CLASSICAL ORGANIZATIONS• The relationship between the managers and the employees is a top-down

only system where the manager says what to do, exactly how to do it, and if you question it, then you’re out.• An example of a pure classical system in today’s organization would be the

shipping company UPS. UPS has a strict system of how to drive, how to walk out of the truck, and how to place packages.• If an employee’s delivery time length gets too long, then they must be

corrected to using the standard methods or that employee is simply no longer a part of UPS.

SO WHERE DOES AU’S IT DEPARTMENT FALL?• In reality the only part of the classical theories that is found

in their IT department is the structure of it.• The general nature of IT and computers in general is that

there are countless ways to solve any of the problems that anyone would encounter.• Except for standards on how to talk to customers, the

procedure for fixing the actual problems would be mainly left up to the employee.

AU’S STRUCTURE

• They have a pretty simple structure that places one person at the top that covers the big picture decisions followed by the training team that makes sure the employees are fit to serve their customers.• The technical team and the help desk team would be on the

same level and would be considered the main work force of the department according to the classical organizational systems.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

• Would a completely classical system work better for IT than a human resources approach? (probably not)• Is someone from AU going to see this and get startled that a

random student made a presentation on their IT department’s organizational structure? Let’s wait and see.• If a computer automatically updates during a nearly completed

document that hasn’t been saved, does it make a sound? (yes, the user’s soul cries out in anguish)

WORK REFERENCED

• Office of Information Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2016, from http://www.american.edu/oit/about/Organizational-Chart.cfm