Organizational Effectiveness

To be effective and achieve its goals, an organization must successfully respond to environmental factors. How can the effectiveness of an organization be measured? Various models of determining organizational effectiveness exist because organizations face different environments, they produce different products, their organizational members are made up of different kinds of people, and the organizations are at different stages of development. Each model is most useful to an organization having a particular combination of these environmental and organizational attributes.

Two different underlying dimensions may be considered to develop models of organizational effectiveness. The first is the organization’s internal versus external focus. The second dimension is the organization’s emphasis on flexibility versus control. Flexibility allows faster change, whereas control allows a firmer grasp on current operations. When these two dimensions are drawn at right angles to each other, the first four models of organizational effectiveness can be plotted. They are the rational goal, open system, internal process, and human relations models.

According to the rational goal model of effectiveness, an organization is effective to the extent that it accomplishes its stated goals. For example, the formal goals of the Toronto Blue Jays are to win their division, the American League pennant, and the World Series.

With an open system model an organization is effective to the degree that it acquires inputs from its environment and has outputs accepted by its environment. The University of Alberta follows this model when it is concerned about the quality and number of students applying for admission and what jobs they receive on graduation.

The internal process model focuses on the effectiveness of the internal transformation process. When