Question

1. Compare and contrast differentiation and integration. How are differentiation and integration related in an effective organization?

2. What is the difference between responsibility, authority, and accountability?

Answer 1

1: Differentiation is the strategy by which each function performs differently with different culture and objectives. Eg: for differentaition are product differentiation, brand differentiation. In product differentiation the same organisation will invest themself into different verticles of production. For eg: Company like Unilever, Wipro etc have wide range of products from health and beauty, cosmetics home care etc. Thus within same organisation they have differentiated themself on the basis of products of brand. This helps in giving different outlook towards business and to capture more market. It also reduces risk from investment perspective and also with the changing economical situation. At the same time integration is another method by which organisation integrates into more closer network so that a colloborative effort can be easily done. There are horizontal and vertical integration by which organisation effectively utilises the business requirements. In vertical integration manufactures develops or acuiqre the organisation from retail chain. Thus they can reduce the intermediatories towards the end customers. Horizontal integration is in the form of merging or acquiring some organisation who has almost same product line. This will enhance their capabilities and also reduce the competition.

b:Responsbility directly indicates the duties associated with particular roles in a job.It is often related with obligation of doing something. It always orginates from the heirarchial perspectives. It is very hard to coneive any responsbility without authority.Authority is the right or certain power associated with particular employees.inorder to achieve certain organisational goals.Authority can be considered as the gensis of any organisational network.It is one of the founding stones for both formal as well as informal organisation.It provides right for decision making and to delegate responbilities to others. Accountability can be considered as the liability created for the use of authority in an organisation. It is the answerability for all sort of performance of the assigned duties.When authority is delegated to their subordinate in an organisation the person is definetely accountable to the superior for duly performing in relation to assigned duties.