Exam 12: Structuring the Organization

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The types of standardization are: behavioral, output, skills, and norm.
Behavioral standardization is based on setting standards, rules, and procedures for work. These tell employees how to do their work. As long as one employee is performing work according to standards and procedures, other workers then know what that worker is likely to do and can plan their own work around those expectations.
Output standardization is based on setting output goals and objectives, but leaving the exact procedures for doing the work more open. In this case, workers or groups become "capsulated" and as long as their output is predictable for other groups, they may have some autonomy in choice of methods. What is important here is that their output be produced as expected so that other groups can plan for and work around those outputs.
Skills standardization involves hiring or training members in particular sets of skills that they apply to situations that arise that are not amenable to behavioral or output standardization. For example, emergency room work is so complex that establishing behavioral procedures for handling every kind of possible injury that might enter the facility would be impossible; this makes behavioral standardization inappropriate. The input of injuries is unpredictable (in type, severity, etc.) and thus setting output standards would be a waste of time. However, by standardizing the skills of medical personnel, some level of predictability for the next level of hospitals is obtained, as non-emergency room doctors and nurses know that patients will have obtained certain types of diagnoses and care, and be documented in certain ways. Also, when skill standardization involves "professionals", they have also been socialized through their educations into value systems (such as ethical norms) that can be counted on to guide their decisions and actions.
Finally, organizations can use norm standardization, in which members are socialized into sharing a set of beliefs that further guides their actions. This form of standardization is particularly useful for somewhat subjective aspects of performance, such as quality or customer service, that are not as amenable to objective treatment by skill or behavioral standardization.
These four types of standardization vary in the order given, in the amount of organizational resources (time, money) that it takes to use them. Thus, organizations should use the cheapest mechanism possible for each situation that arises. However, most complex organizations will use at least the first three of these mechanisms for various situations.