hat turn out individuals with skills only as good as those in other companies will not enable a company to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition. The idea underlying the T Group approach is to immerse workers in all of the pressures, scheduling demands, quality requirements, and production headaches that are parts of the environment within which an organization functions.
Most organizational structures are product/process- or functional-based (Gortner, Mahler, & Nicholson, 1994). Mixed organizational structures, however, have long been common. The hybrid organizational structure attempts to combine the advantages of both product/process-based and functional-based structures "while avoiding the weaknesses of each" (Gortner, Mahler, & Nicholson, 1994, p. 121). The matrix organizational structure groups staff into functional areas, with temporary assignments to special project groups, or teams. Such special project teams are multi-functional in character. This approach to the team concept "produces a matrix in which the columns represent projects and the rows represent functional departments" (Gortner, Mahler, & Nicholson, 1994, p. 121). The matrix is "a fairly complex form of organization and is generally both costly and time consuming to administer because of all of the crosscutting of lines of authority and accountability that must be coordinated" (Gortner, Mahler, & Nicholson, 1994, p. 122).
Management by walking around (MBWA) is a process of getting to know ones subordinates and of one's subordinates getting to know you. The theory holds that managers cannot understand what is going on unless they spend time where the action of the business is occurring (Lussier, Baeder, & Corman, 1994).
Consulting Management & Portfolio Management
One approach to strategic management for organizations with diversified business portfolios is the application of consulting management using portfolio management techniques (Mintz...