Читать книгу Foundations of management - Juan Antonio Pérez López - Страница 7

A formal organization is a formula for coordinating actions that can help to satisfy needs. The real organization is that which exists when a particular group of people decides to implement a formal organization.

The real organization includes the formal organization plus the entire set of interactions that occur between people, which, logically, are not foreseen—and, in many cases, not foreseeable—in the formal organization. The real interactions that occur within a real organization, and which are not considered in the formal organization, are termed informal organization, spontaneous organization or system and non-formalized system. (Fig. 1)

What happens in the world of non-formalized relations or interactions is of decisive importance for the life of the real organization. Something similar happens with the stars observed by astronomers: the most frequently observed phenomena are the superficial ones. But those which make whole stars vanish, releasing incredible amounts of energy, take place within the core of these heavenly bodies. The most visible and immediate aspect of a real organization is its formal organization. This is what is explained to us when we ask what an organization does, and why. However, its basic processes are to be found on a deeper level, which is determined by informal interactions, and on which the real organization depends for its future. In the following pages we will discuss in somewhat greater detail what the formal organization consists of, as well as the basic processes which ensure its existence as a real organization.