Introduction

We are born in organisation, educated by organisations and most of us spend much of our lives working for organisations. An organisation is a coordinated social entity, grouped together and interact for the achievement of the common goal. It refers to the process of identification and grouping of activities, defining and establishing the authority responsibility relationship and determining the manner in which the organisational activities are interrelated. Thus the organisation consists of a group of people working together for the achievement of the organisational goal. Various theories have been propounded which explain the organisation in terms of closed, open and dynamic system. Traditionally organisation is viewed as a closed system which does not get affected by external environment. Here the focus is for designing sound organisational structure which facilitates people to accomplish its objectives smoothly. Contrarily the modern view of organisation accepts the environment as an integral part of organisational reality. Therefore to accomplish predetermined goals the organisation must adapt to external environment. The open system’s view perceives the organisation as a social system which is composed of a number of sub-systems all of which are independent and interrelated. Man and his organisations are interwoven. Man works in organisations and seek great benefits from organisations. Successful organisations imply the well coordinated efforts of two or more persons. These persons may enhance their abilities and reap the benefits from organisational entities.

Concept of Organisation

Organising refers to the process involving the identification and grouping of activities to be performed and defining and establishing the authority responsibility relationships. This enables people to work most effectively together in achieving the enterprise objectives. In a general sense, organising consists of determining and arranging for men, materials, machines and money required by an enterprise for the attainment of its goals. In a restricted and operational sense, the term organising means defining the duties and responsibilities of the people employed, and determining the manner in which their activities are to be interrelated. The end result of organising is the creation of a structure of duties and responsibilities of people in different positions, grouped according to the similarity and interrelated nature of activities. In other words, the outcome of the organising process is an Organisation consisting of a group of people working together for the achievement of one or more common objectives.

Robins has defined organisation as a consciously coordinated social entity, with a relatively identifiable boundary, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Thus, it can be concluded that an organisation is an economic and social entity in which a number of persons perform tasks to achieve a predetermined goals. This helps them to accomplish the personal goals like socioeconomic satisfaction which they cannot achieve alone. Similarly it is a system of clearly defined structure of activities consciously designed to allow organisational participants to work effectively toward common goal.

The characteristics of an organisation are as follow:

• Group of People : An organisation comes into existence when a group of people combine their efforts for some common purpose and willingly contribute towards their common endeavour.
• Division of Work : Setting of an organisation involves division of the total work into various activities and functions, and assigning the tasks to different persons according to their skill, ability and experience.
• Common Purpose : Every organisation comes into existence on the basis of goals of the enterprise which are separate from the personal goals of the people employed. It is the common purpose of the organisation which provides the basis of cooperation among the members of the organisation.
• Vertical and Horizontal Relationships : An organisation creates cooperative relationships between different departments and divisions as well as between superiors and subordinates. Different functions and activities like production, marketing, financing etc. are integrated for the achievement of proper coordination. The duties and responsibilities of superiors and subordinates in each department or division are also unified so as to serve the purpose of their joint efforts.
• Chain of Command : The superior-subordinate relationships established in an organisation are based on the authority which flows from the higher levels of management to the next lower levels, thereby forming a hierarchical chain. This is known as the chain of command, which also determines the line of communication.
• Dynamics of Organisation : Besides the structural relationships among people which are based on their activities and functions, there exists an organising interactions based on sentiments, attitudes and behaviour of individuals and groups. These aspects of relationship provide a dynamic element to the organisational functioning. They are subject to change from time to time.