Personal Reflection paper on Course learning

The overall course has been so interesting with so much informative material, which not only kept my interest alive but also enhanced my knowledge in so many ways. The course allowed me to learn so many useful lessons, and I would like to throw light on a few of them. The first important lesson and knowledge that I gained from the course were to understand a comprehensive perspective on organizations. I always wondered that there are so many organizations in different industries, but how they are different in structure and design, etc. The course really helped me to understand each and every aspect of organizations. I learned about organization theory and organization design. It was great to learn the fact that organizations are an open system, where the process is that input is given through people, raw materials, financial resources, and the transformation process is handled by the organization, which comes with output such as products & services. With this ability to give output in the shape of products and services, the organizations have played a significant role in making an impact on society.

It is a fact that we generally look at organizations as business entities, which are there to earn revenues and profits. But in reality, the organizations are way more than just business entities. This is another important concept that I learned in this course that organizations are important in so many ways. They have not only earned profits for themselves, but also created value for employees, customers as well as owners.  For instance, when organizations operate in a society or region, people get jobs due to these organizations. The customers are able to get their favorite products and services, and stakeholders also get so many benefits. The organizations facilitate innovation, which results in innovative products for customers to use and make their lives more comfortable. The organizations also adapt to any changes happening to the environment. The society faces so many challenges with regards to ethics & diversity, and the good thing about the organizations is that they help to deal with such challenges.

The other important concept that I learned in this course was regarding the challenges faced by organizations in recent times. There was time when organizations used to operate on a local and national level, but it is not the case anymore. The globalization has completely changed the arena of the business landscape for these organizations. Now, organizations have a reach to different corners of the world without any restriction to specific borders. This has allowed gaining more opportunities for the organization, but at the same time, the organizations are also facing various challenges, and one of such challenges is intense competition. The technology is evolving with the passage of time, which is forcing organizations to come up with new innovations by using these technologies. For instance, the organizations are forced to integrate their businesses with big data. It means that current competition and challenges are increasing with the passage of time, and organizations will survive if they will adapt to these changes. Otherwise, competitors will leave some organization behind in every aspect of the business.

It is also important to mention some technical information and concepts that I learned from this course. One such concept is the external environment of organizations. It was great to know that organizations have to deal with various external environmental factors, which can have an impact on the organization in so many ways. It was great to understand that all those elements, which are happening outside the organizational boundary, are considered external environment elements. These external factors can affect different parts or in some cases affecting the whole organization. There are different external factors in this domain such as industry sector, in which the organization is operating its business.

The raw material sector is another external factor as an organization has to get the raw material from outside sources to produce products and services. These sectors are the ones, which directly affect an organization, but there are also sectors, which have an indirect impact on organizations. One such factor is the government, which may affect an organization through certain regulations. The technology sectors, as well as economic conditions, are also considered indirect external factors, which can have a huge impact on organizations and their business processes.

The other important concept to learn was about changing the role of management. It was explained in the course that how different factor such as ecosystems of organizations are forcing managers to go beyond their traditional roles. They should come up with a thinking approach, which is based on horizontal processes. The management has to become more adaptive as well as collaborative to deal with the new changing business environment for organizations.

I would like to mention here that the overall course content was very informative. It allowed me to learn so much information about organizations, businesses, and their design & structure. It has given me so much informative knowledge, which I can surely use when I join the professional field. The other good thing about this course was its various readings, which had lots of useful information and concepts. One reading that I liked most amongst all was the book “Organization Theory & Design” written by Richard L. Daft. This book has 13 chapters, and each chapter was full of ideas, concepts, and information about organizations. I really loved reading these 13 chapters of this book. It changed my overall perspective about organizations and allowed me to gain a real understanding that what organizations are how they operate, what is their design and structure, and how they impact us.

As in part one, the importance of organization is explained, and after reading the importance, I reach that point I have no idea about this importance in an organization and some of them I discuss here. In an organization it’s important to achieve the desired goal brings together all resources of the organization.  For owners, the customer, as well as employees, create the values. This is also an important thing in this part that services and product produce goods and efficient work. I appreciate the author of this book that how elegantly he describes each and everything related to the organization success.

In this book, the strategy that is used for the effective organization so good and the topology author used in this part is miles and Snow’s strategy typology. This is based on matching the demands of the external environment. Before reading this book, I don’t have the knowledge about this topology. If someone asked me about some book that is related to the organization I prefer this book, this is very helpful, and the author explained each and everything in this book not a single thing is missed in this book.  

In the last part of the book, the author also describe the international trending.  Now a day’s people interested in that business which is globally rising. Therefore motivation factors that help in doing this and have the knowledge of economic scale, scope as well as the factor of low-cost production. And the author describes some stages of international evolution in a good manner. This is one of the best books in the current era.