Organization

Jillian Simmons ~ Commented on Group #1 & #3 ~ My role was to write the Organizational Paper.
Brent Baumer ~ Commented on Group #1, #2 & #3 ~ My role was to coordinate with the community partners.
Kelly Neal ~ Commented on Group #1, #2 & #3 ~ My role was to determine management structure of partnership team, as well as 1/2 page reflection paper and posting to the blog.


Organization Paper

Jillian Simmons, Kelly Neal, and Brent Baumer

Ball State University

Organization Paper

Introduction

                The Big Read is a program that “was introduced by the National Endowment of the Arts with ten communities in 2006, and a nationwide roll-out the following year.” (Big Read, 2015)  Our goal was to introduce the Big Read to our local community; Muncie, IN through this year’s book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury in 1953.  The possible programs, located in Muncie, Indiana, that were selected to promote the Big Read programs are as follows: Morrison Woods Health Campus, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County, Ball Memorial Hospital, Muncie Central High School, and Westminster Village of Muncie.   These facilities were chosen because their organizational management theory of “shared values and beliefs provide the glue that binds the organization’s members together in a common cause.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.360)  By finding partners that share a common goal, a more valuable experience can be achieved for both parties. 

Morrison Woods Health Campus is a retirement and assisted-living, nursing home facility owned and operated by Trilogy Health Services.  Trilogy operates multiple locations throughout Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. (Trilogy, 2015)  This organization was relevant to adult and community education as well as the Big Read program, because the residents of the facility are the appropriate age to read the book as well as their families and friends. There are also adult themes in the book that the residents, their families and friends, and the employers and employees can relate to and possibly learn from.

                Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County is a local not-for-profit organization affiliated with the national organization, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. This organization is relevant to adult and community education and the Big Read program, because it aims is to improve the lives of local kids in high school and are age appropriate to read Fahrenheit 451. The aim of Big Read is to enhance literacy in Muncie, which is something that the organization and Big Read have in common.

                Ball Memorial Hospital is the only hospital in Muncie that serves local citizens of all ages on a daily basis. Ball Memorial also has many educational programs for students in medical programs as well as other medical classes that promote reading and adult literacy. Ball Memorial Hospital is relevant to adult and community education, because it supports opportunities to members of the community.

                       Westminster Village of Muncie is a retirement, assisted-living, and nursing facility. It has relevance to adult and community due to the fact that it houses adults, who are of age to participate in the Big Read program. Big Read would also support this facility by providing activities for people with plenty of free time and by stimulating the minds of the residents by reading and participating in the activities.

                Muncie Central High School is one of Muncie’s two public high schools. The school corporations mission is to “provide a quality educational environment that allows every student to maximize his or her potential and, upon graduation, possess the basic skills necessary to be a positive, productive, contributing member of society.” (Muncie Schools, 2015)  This organization has relevance to adult and community education due to the fact that they are teaching students in the community that are already adults or will soon be adults seeking a higher education.

Organizational Structure and Management Features

The organizational structure and management feature of Morris Woods Health Campus is that it is a for-profit L.L.C. and it is corporate-owned by Trilogy Health Services, L.L.C. The Westminster Village of Muncie organizational structure and management feature is that it is a not-for-profit retirement community.  Morris Woods Health Campus and Westminster Village of Muncie both follow the Organization Theory, which is defined as “the study of formal structures, internal processes, external constraints, and the ways organizations affect and are affected by members.” (Tompkins, 2005 pg.1) Morris Woods Health Campus and Westminster Village of Muncie exhibit this theory by the fact that they are formal structures that have to follow rules and regulations in order to ensure the safety and wellness of their residents. The internal processes are the procedures that employers and employees must follow within the facility. It is also their routines, which nursing homes often have to keep order within their facilities.

The external constraints are the constraints imposed on the nursing homes by the residents’ families, such as a Do Not Resuscitate Order, which does not allow any nurse in the nursing home to perform CPR on a patient who has flat-lined or has no pulse. The ways of the organization affect the members and the organizations itself can be exhibited by looking at the structures of nursing homes if procedures are not followed. For example, if a nurse is not following procedures by checking up on her patients and keeping them clean and one patient happens to suffer from bed sores, the nursing home would be liable to damages implied on the patient. “Theoretical knowledge places managers in a better position to understand how organizational realities both facilitate and constrain their efforts.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.2)

Other aspects of the organizational theory are the micro perspective and the macro perspective. The micro perspective is exhibited in how the procedures of the facility and the requirement of the employers and employees is to “focus on the people and groups seeking to understand behavior and interrelationships.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.3) Nurses and other employers or employees must understand and gain the trust of their patients by focusing on each individual and their needs. The macro perspectives “typically investigate structural arrangements.”(Tompkins, 2005, pg.2)

The macro perspective is exhibited when looking at the hierarchy of the facility. For example, the supervisors are at the top of the hierarchy, the registered nurses are in the middle, and the CNAs are beneath the nurses, and the maintenance and food workers are at the bottom. This can also be seen when looking at the corporate hierarchy of the Morris Woods Health Campus organization. In this case, supervisors would be towards the bottom of the hierarchy while corporate managers would be at the top.

The organizational structure and management features of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County organization is that it is a one-on-one mentoring organization aimed at positively impacting the lives of local youth. This organization is another example of organization theory by exhibiting organizational behavior from a micro perspective in the way that it offers one-on-one mentoring to students. This proves that the organization is “focusing on individuals and groups as the basic units of analysis seeking to understand behavior and interrelationships.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.3) This organization also uses the organizational culture and leadership theory of the 1980’s and 1990’s by proving that they are “creating a culture committed to high performance through visionary leadership and symbolic management” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.5) by having a goal in order to mentor students and bring them to a certain level of success.   The goal of the Big Brother Big Sisters national is utilized by “Our local agencies working with their colleagues across the nation to design and develop programs that are tailored to the needs of their community” (BBBS, 2015)

                The organizational structures and management features of Muncie Central High School are organizational theory and the organizational culture and leadership theory of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Organizational theory is exhibited in this organization by the fact that there is a hierarchy from the top, where the principal is located to the bottom, where the students are located. This also proves that there is a macro perspective. There are formal structures and internal processes, which is how there is a routine in how a school is ran everyday by the principals and teachers. This can also be seen in how children are taught. There are external constraints, such as the parents. For example, if a student misbehaves and the procedure is to paddle the student, but the parent does not allow the principal to carry out the punishment, the parent would be acting as the external constraint. The organizational culture and leadership theory of the 1980’s and 1990’s is displayed by the school when it creates “a culture committed to high performance through visionary leadership and symbolic management.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.5) The school displays this by setting goals, setting examples, and exhibiting leadership skills by teaching and mentoring students.

                The organizational structures and management features of Ball Memorial Hospital are promoting good health and practices, having classes that assist in promoting those practices, and providing information about programs that enhance the local citizens of Muncie. Ball Memorial Hospital is a complex organization, which is “an organization so large and structurally differentiated that it cannot be managed effectively by a single individual.” (Tompkins, 2005, pg.1) The hospital also follows the organizational theory in that there is a hierarchy that goes up from the doctors then down to the nurses. The administrative management theory of the 1920’s and 1930’s, which identifies “the administrative principles that allow organizations to accomplish complex tasks,” is exhibited by the hospital when it comes to following the hierarchy from doctors to nurses when deciding and carrying out procedures to help a patient. (Tompkins, 2005, pg.4)

Actions

                The residents of Morris Woods Health Campus have a lot of free time to read the book and they have family and friends that often come for visits at the home that may want to participate in the Big Read activities along with their relatives living at the facility. The employees and employers at the facility are also of the appropriate age to read the book and might also like to participate in the Big Read activities with the residents.  The employees and employers might also want to promote the Big Read program to their families and friends. The fact that the organization has other locations around Indiana and other states means that there is potential for people, who are not Muncie locals, to come and participate in the Big Read activities as well as spread the word about Big Read to others. Management for Morris Woods Health Campus supports the cause of Big Read, which is to get more people interested in reading, especially those of adult or elderly ages. Big Read can also help aging minds stay active, which leads to maintaining a good mental health, which makes it a great support program for Morris Woods Health Campus. 

 Like the Morrison Woods Health Campus, the families, friends, employers, and employees at Westminster Village of Muncie may also have an interest in participating in the Big Read activities along with the residents.

                Big Brothers Big Sisters can use the Big Read program and its activities to through their volunteers as learning and bonding activities with the youth they mentor. Another way that Big Sisters can help to promote the Big Read program is by spreading the word to the parents of the students and getting them to participate in learning and boding with their children.

                Muncie Central High School can support the Big Read program by promoting it throughout the school as well as by sending notices home to parents who may want to join their children by supporting their education and literacy. The Big Read program can help students with their reading scores, which can also lead to higher standardized testing scores.

Ball Memorial Hospital deals with people of all ages and everyone in Muncie, which means that the hospital would be able to promote the Big Read program to a myriad number of people. Big Read would also be able to support the hospital in trying to gain opportunities that will enhance the quality of the lives of people in community.

Reflection

The highlights of this assignment was learning different ways to communicate organizations and persuading them to jump on board with Big Read. Another highlight of this assignment was meeting with different organization and getting their input on what they thought about the Big Read program and what they thought would help bring people in the community to the event. The Morris Woods Health Campus agreed to let us have the event at their local facility as well as promote the event to residents and their families and friends. Muncie Central High School and Westminster Village of Muncie also agreed to promote the event. The biggest highlight was discussing the event with Larry Strange in his office at the library. He provided a lot of helpful information about which organizations to reach out to and how to approach these organizations. He also offered to publish an article about the events in the newsletter for the city council meetings.

The process of completing this assignment came with disappointments and more highlights. We sent out emails and made phone calls to all of the organizations. It took weeks to get good and bad responses. Some responded that there was just not enough information from us for them to agree to the event or they just didn’t think it was a good move for their organization. We had meetings in person with the Morris Woods Health Campus, which is the reason we believe is why we received the best response from them. Only three agreed to promote the event and only one agreed to allow us to have the event at their facility.

Organizations

	Names of the Muncie organizations which can support the Big Read	Organizational structure and Management features of these organizations	Main ideas of the organization/mana gement theories which reflect the features of Muncie organizations.	Action: How can we utilize Muncie organizations to support the Big Read based on the features of their organization structure/their management features?
1	Morrison Woods Health Campus http://trilogyhs.com/	For profit LLC, corporate owned.  Multiple locations throughout IN, OH, KY and MI.  Owned by Trilogy Health Services, LLC.	Retirement and assisted living and nursing home facility.	Captive audience interested in reading and participating.  Support from the management for the program.  Big Read can help aging minds stay active helping to maintain mental health.
2	Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County http://www.bbbsmuncie.org/	Local not-for-profit organization affiliated with the national organization Big Brothers Big Sisters of America	One-on-one child mentoring organization aimed at positively impacting the lives of local youth. https://youtu.be/Sx2l8K6xNKM	BBBS can use the Big Read activities through their volunteers as a learning and bonding activity with the youth they serve.
3	Westminster Village of Muncie http://www.wvmuncie.com/	Not-for-profit retirement community http://www.wvmuncie.com/about/	Retirement and assisted living and nursing home facility.	Westminster Village declined our request for assistance in promoting Big Read citing disruption from current construction activities

References

BBBS. (2015). Big Brothers Big Sisters. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.9iILI3NGKhK6F/b.5968193/k.5031/Our_programs_get_things_started.htm


Big Read. (2015). In The Big Read. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from http://neabigread.org/


Muncie. (2015). Muncie Community Schools. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from http://www.muncie.k12.in.us/Home/AboutUs


Tompkins, J. (2005). Organization theory and public management (p. 1,2,3,4,5,360). Australia: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.


Trilogy. (2015). Trilogy Health Services. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from http://trilogyhs.com/our-culture/trilogy-difference