Organizing Process

After the reorganization, management layers in the company’s hierarchy were reduced from twelve layers to six. The top management level was represented by the Chief Executive Officer.

The company has a centralized approach of management. Many of the decisions that had been made in the stores were made by top management. The concentration of decision-making authority at the upper levels of an organization is often justified based on the need to achieve better coordination and consistency in all the organization activities, operations and policies.

Span of Control

The Executive Vice President of operations has direct authority over the Vice President of marketing and two general managers for retail operations, operations support, and real estate. These general managers, on the other hand, have a direct control over 18 operations directors. These operations directors have control over the seventy-four district managers and the human resource and technology staff.

Grouping Activities in FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Services, Inc.

The company was reorganized by geographical region- East, West, Central, and International. Partners who owned the largest group of stores headed up their regional divisions.

The stores have been reorganized into a hub- and- spoke configuration.

Does Kinko’s use an organic or mechanistic system to achieve integration?

Kinko’s uses a mechanistic system to achieve integration. We can see that FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Services, Inc. has exemplified the characteristics of highly formalized and “bureaucratic” organizations.

Kinkos’s was relatively a large company; hence, a mechanistic system is very appropriate in order to manage and monitor all stores. In addition, we can notice that managers provide a considerable direction and control over the other.  The company is highly centralized, wherein all the decisions were made by top-level positions. All the operations of the company and the working behavior of the employees are governed by the instruction and decisions issued by superiors.

The company has a hierarchic structure of control of authority. In line to this, there is a vertical direction of communication through the organization. All the interaction made is form top to bottom.

The company is highly standardized. Qualifications for top executives have been standardized. Each person must be a strong team player, had previously been with successful organization and each held job with high accountability. The company also used formal specification of methods in the performance of a job. In fact, all stores were connected through the Internet so that jobs could be allocated, distributed, or shared, as the need arose.

There is a precise definition of obligation for each position or role. For instance, each operation director has the responsibility on the profit and loss in a distinct geographical market.

All of these characteristics exemplified by the company have resembled the characteristics of a mechanistic system.

References

Allen, Gemmy. (1998). Organizing Process. Retrieved April 1, 2008