M710 Final Summer 2000
As usual, be sure to cover the entire question, make relevant allusions to sources, demonstrate depth of
insight, write well and organize your answer carefully.
(20 points)
1.
Use concepts of the Johari Window, enactment and autopoiesis to address the relationship between
organizations and “their” environments.
(40 points)
2.
Argue for this statement: organizations exist to serve humanity. Next, argue against that
expression, and in favor of: humanity exists to serve organizations. What are the implications of
each of these perspectives for definitions of organizational effectiveness? How do organizational
effectiveness priorities shift depending on the position adopted with regard to these statements?
Sketch your own model of organizational effectiveness.
(30 points)
3.
Here is a quote from Stud’s Terkel’s (1972) classic book, Working,. Talking is a telephone
operator, complaining about how her job is to help people, but how limited she is by management
to make a difference in anyone’s life: “Say you’ve got a guy on the line calling from Vietnam, his
line is busy and you can’t interrupt. God knows when he’ll be able to get on his line again. You
know he’s lonesome and he wants to talk to somebody, and there you are and you can’t talk to
him. When I first started, I asked [another] operator and she says, ‘No, he can always call
another time.’”
Take a job of which you are aware. Discuss the extent to which it is like a “psychic prison”.
Suggest ways things could be improved, both for the benefit of the person in the job and those
who are ultimately the customers.
(10 points)
4.
Discuss the similarities and differences between Scott’s and Morgan’s view of organizational
pathologies.