Organization theory discipline, which is about modern organizations, mainly emerged in the second half of the 19th century when the industrial civilization appeared.

The concept of “intense competition”, regardless of the sector, has emerged in today’s fast-changing condition, which is more backbreaking than simple competition between companies. Globalization has caused competition to change its structural and dimensional form. The environment of businesses has increasingly become dynamic and the time factor has gained importance. The success of organizations that want to provide a competitive advantage depends on the ability to perceive the change around them and adapt to it quickly. To succeed in the intense competition environment, organizations must decrease their cost of production, increase their quality and exceed high above customers’ expectations. Therefore, choice (b) is the correct answer.

Big and old organizations will lose their abilities for adaptation to external changes because of structural inertia according the population ecology theory. The term structural inertia means state of being indifferent to external changes. There are internal and external causes of structural inertia according to Hannan and Freeman. 

Coordination refers to the process of setting up the activities of people or their units to achieve a state of integration.

I and II need to be corrected as follows:

-When a firm faces a complex and fast changing organizational environment, its functional departments need to become highly specialized and highly skilled to handle complexity and uncertainty in its environment. 

-The degree of differentiation among departments increases as each department has unique orientations, attitudes, values, goals, and education that distinguish them from one another. 

Correct answer is D. 

The mechanistic organization has a high degree of formalization, centralization, and specialization; tall hierarchy; bureaucratic control; and personal and/ or skill-based pay as the incentive system. The environments characterized by uncertaintyand rapid rates of change in market conditions or technologies require organic organizational designs. On the contrary, the environments characterized by relative stability necessitate mechanistic organizational designs. 

Organizations with low-moderate uncertainty environments are formal and centralized, have many departments, some boundry spanning, have few integrating roles, some planning and moderate speed response. Universites are an example for this kind of organizations. 

There are many advantages of the M-form. The M-form enables growing quickly; it provides better training for future executives; it offers enhanced responsiveness to the needs of customers; and it allows for accountability based on divisional profits. However, duplication and the challenge of coordinating across the different departments are the main disadvantages. Therefore, the correct option is A.

A focus strategy aims either at a low cost advantage or a differentiation advantage for a narrow segment or niche market.

External resource approach is applicable when the objectives of the organization are uncertain or difficult to evaluate such as in public or non-profit organizations. Thus, the correct answer is A.

There are diverse coordination mechanisms for organizations
1. Face-to-face interpersonal interaction
2. Rules and procedures for coordinating routine, recurring activities
3. Standardized plans, skills, and values
4. Direct supervision
5. Staff assistants as specialized administrative personnel created to facilitate interaction
between personnel of the same unit
6. Liaisons as specialized positions or units designed to facilitate interchange between
interdependent units
7. Teams having members from different units
8. Coordination-supporting software packages
9. Independent integrators, who are independent of the departments they coordinate and report to the manager who
oversees those departments.

Choices (a) and (b) are business organizations, (c) is a service organization, and (d) is a mutual benefit organization. However, commonwealth organizations are basically for social services. They are formed to offer standard services for the majority of the population. The motivator of these organizations is not profit. Police offices, army forces, courts, fire services, and other public institutions are examples of these organizations. The beneficiaries of commonwealth organizations are ordinary people in general. Therefore, choice (d) is the correct answer.

Options A, C, D, and E are the advantages of the M-form. the functional (unitary) form lowers costs by reducing duplication.

Adapting to an organic structure and flexible managerial approach may not be sufficient to cope with uncertainty. James Thompson who made contributions to the field highlights that organizations are not completely closed structures in his famous book Organizations in Action. He divided organizations into three levels: institutional level, managerial level, and technical level.

Social network theory emphasizes that organizations need social support from the important actors in their environment just as an individual or a group of people. Having social ties with the key decision makers and the other organizations can enable flow of resources into an organization. Famous French sociologist Pierre Bordieu and other network researchers define social capital as network relations of an actor that can provide benefits. Organizations, which have broad and influential social networks, can have a significant competitive advantage over others that are having few social connections. If this assumption is valid in business life, organizations should spend their efforts to increase quantity and quality of their social connections. Their intention to form organizational social capital may lead to emergence of complex inter-organizational networks. It can be vitally important for a manager to examine and analyze these networks in the external environment. Organizations can form a network of relations by hiring individuals who can provide the required social connections, collaborating with other organizations or promoting employees who have powerful social networks to the critical positions – strategic level. In the given example, too, this kind of an advatage is described. Therefore, choice (d) is the correct answer.

Strategy map is a visual representation of an organization strategy that describes its key business objectives which can be easily used to communicate to the whole organization. Correct answer is D. 

Structural characteristics of production department are as follows:

• Tall structure
• Centralization of authority
• Standardization
• Strict hierarchy of authority
• Mechanistic form

Choices (b), (c), (d), and (e) are among the elements of the scientific management approach. They have nothing to do with input, conversion, and output, which are defined by Gareth Jones as the three stages in value creation. Therefore, choice (a) is the correct answer.

The balanced scorecard approach (BSC) is an integrated measure of organization effectiveness that includes not only traditional financial measurements and business processes but also includes concerns for customers and employees. Unlike the approaches we have previously discussed, BSC seeks to generate a comprehensive performance measurement framework to balance concerns of various parts of an organization instead of focusing only on one part.

Coercive Isomorphism: Sometimes the impact of legal environment and state institutions on some sectors may be higher than the other areas. In this case, organizations must develop an internal sys­tem which is consistent with the requirements imposed by state and other regulative agencies. All the health care institutions in Turkey must be consistent with the standards imposed by Ministry of Health. The given example is similar to this situation. Therefore, choice (b) is the correct answer.