Principles of Organization Behavior
In the modern world, every organization strives to get a larger share of the industrial market. The competition is stiff among companies, each striving to the largest market share by offering quality products and services to enhance customers’ experience and increase revenue. Organizations offering similar or slightly differentiated products may opt to merge their operation to dominate the market. Also, state governments have various agencies whose aim is to provide services to the citizens. For instance, the industry of health has different organizations that provide healthcare services to public. Some of them are non-profit organizations and the government funds their operations to ensure quality and timely provision of healthcare. In some cases, organizations offer almost similar services or only slightly differentiated. This increases a burden to the government and duplication of services. Additionally, the quality of services provided is less satisfying since each organization expects the other one to provide the services and by the end of the day, the public does not benefit from what has been funded by the government. The government may opt to merge the agencies to streamline their operation for the benefits of its citizens. At a certain point, two or more competitors may find it better to merge to improve their operation, secure bigger market share, and gain confidence from their consumers. They initiate the merging process and lay down procedures and policies that will govern all activities of the more prominent organizations including sharing of profits and expenses.
The administration may find it necessary to merge the departments to cut cost and enhance the quality of service provision. In Michigan, the state government joined the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Community Health (DCH) to form Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The paper covers brief information and responsibilities of DHS, DCH, and DHHS, the theories of organization behavior, as well as the strategies how to successfully merge DHS and DCH without creating conflicts.
Background
The Department of Community Health
The establishment of DCH took place in 1996 by executive order, consolidating the former Citizens Health and Mental Health Departments with the program of Medicaid (Radin, 2010). A year later, programs for providing services to physically impaired individuals and that of adult home care, office offering services to victims of crime, and to aging persons were transferred from other departments to the DCH (Healthfinder.gov, 2017). The budget of DCH has been increasing steadily since its formation and it was $ 16, 634 million in 2014 (Michigan.gov, 2017). The outcome intended from the DCH consolidation was to refocus health services delivery and administration to the public, integrate and coordinate state functions related to health care, and enhance focus promoting health and prevention of health issues. Also, the formation of DCH aimed at increasing quality of access and care provision by pooling streams of the fund into an integrated system of purchasing health services, and streamline policy, purchasing, and management of state health services.
The Department of Human Services
The DHS in Michigan was established to offer help to families and individuals (Radin, 2010, p. 147). DHS administered programs for financial assistance, services, and regulations of their facilities. For instance, in 2014, there were about 38,387 cases of Family Independence Program (FIP) monthly (Healthfinder.gov, 2017). It assisted people to meet their social, medical, and financial needs until they became self-dependent. Other responsibilities of the organization included protecting adults and children from exploitation, abuse, as well as neglects, regulation and issuance in making licenses for homes for the aged, adult foster care, and children adoption (Greene, 2017). Initially, DHS was The Agency of Family Independence and had offices in every county in the state.
Despite the fact that the state government funded the departments effectively, the outcome of programs offered was less than expected since their organizational structure and culture limited their operations. For instance, the structure of the department of human service was highly decentralized with no discrete division for child welfare. It had various responsibilities for services that ranged widely minimizing experts to focus on the well-being of children. From the directors to the subordinate staff, only very few had specific responsibility for children welfare (MLive.com, 2017). Further, most managers in the department had no experience or education essential to prepare them for their challenging responsibilities for fostering and adopting children.
Merging of DCH and DHS
The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, initiated the merge of DCH and DHS after he came to power in the state. Having uses the power provided in the constitution, he signed an executive order to merge the departments in 2015 (MLive.com, 2017). The merging aimed at serving the citizens better through coordinating existing assistance programs and services. He emphasized that the restructuring was not just putting DCH and DHS together, but he also tried to impose a fundamentally better way of serving people by an effective, efficient, and accountable administration, treating them like individuals and not the programs (Schuchat, 2015, p. 20). According to the Head of State, the government funded from about 150 to 200 service programs (MLive.com, 2017), and some citizens were participating in multiple programs in different locations with many caseworkers. The only holistic way of approaching credible service provision was by the initiation of the merge the organizations to form the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
DHHS emerged as the organization with the largest number of departments in the State (approximately 15,000) and combined the budget of about $24 billion (Resources, 2017). The merge saves a significant amount of administrative costs. There was a concern that some employees would be laid off. However, Snyder defended his move by saying that the primary goal was to see that all workers were active in serving the community. The merger was supported by streamlining of operations and the usage of public resources, and the community was provided with “one stop shopping” for services. The question remained how the merging could be efficient without creating conflicts. Besides, some theories of organizational behavior could support the merging of the two departments.
Discussion
How employees in an organization behave has a significant to its performance as well as the output. Merging of DCH and DHS could be supported by the scientific leadership theory, a theory of organization behavior that put more emphasize on how to work more efficiently. The scientific leadership first determines objectives of the organization and then defines performance standards that will replace the old rules (Brousseau, Garrouste, & Raynaud, 2011, p. 12). The aim of DHHS is to streamline the provision of services to the citizens, enhance efficiency, accountability, and consumers’ satisfaction. When DCH and DHS were operating separately, ineff