IOP 460 Week 2 Structural and Human Resource Frames Example

Who Decides at the Warehouse Now? Structural and Human Resource Frames After a Food Bank Merger

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

IOP/460: Organizational Cultures

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The food bank, its staff and its figures are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Organizations can be viewed through several lenses, each highlighting different problems and solutions. This paper applies two of them, the structural and human resource frames, to a food bank struggling after a merger, using the case introduced in Week 1.

The Merger

Valley Harvest Food Bank in Phoenix, Arizona, merged with two neighborhood pantries last year to serve more families and share costs. Staff grew from sixty to one hundred twenty, and the number of warehouses rose from one to three. The founder, Pastor Gloria Mendez, still leads, assisted by a small team that once made every decision informally around a single table. Problems surfaced quickly. The three warehouses ran different schedules and inventory systems. Volunteers arriving at the east-side site were told different things by different staff. Staff from the merged pantries felt that decisions were made at headquarters without them. Two experienced warehouse leads resigned in the same month, each citing confusion about who was in charge.

Four Frames

Bolman and Deal (2017) proposed that leaders can understand organizations through four frames. The structural frame sees organizations as systems of goals, roles, rules and coordination designed to fit tasks and environments. Through the human resource lens, organizations exist to meet people's needs, and success depends on how well people and jobs fit each other. The remaining two lenses, political and symbolic, look at contests over resources and at meaning and ritual. The authors argued that effective leaders use several frames, because each reveals different possibilities. This week applies the first two.

The Structural View

From the structural frame, Valley Harvest's problems stem from a structure designed for one site and sixty people. No one owns cross-site coordination. Roles overlap: two managers believe they schedule east-side volunteers. Rules differ by warehouse because each kept its old procedures. Decisions that once happened at one table now require information from three places, so they either stall or are made without key input.

Mintzberg (1980) synthesized research on organizational design into a small number of structural configurations, from the simple structure, where one leader directs everyone personally, through rule-bound and expert-driven forms, to a divisional form in which semi-independent units are held to common output targets and a flexible form in which experts coordinate by working things out together. Mintzberg argued that effective organizations achieve a consistent fit among their design parameters, their situation and their configuration.

Valley Harvest was a classic simple structure, effective when small and when the founder could see everything. With three sites, it needs something closer to a divisionalized form: each warehouse run by a site manager accountable for clear outputs, such as pounds distributed and volunteer shifts filled, with shared standards across sites and a coordinator linking them.

Pastor Mendez's door was always open; with three warehouses across the city, an open door is no longer a structure.

The Human Resource View

From the human resource frame, the problems look different. Staff from the merged pantries lost the autonomy and identity they had in their small organizations. Their skills, such as deep ties to neighborhood families, are not being used. Warehouse leads are working long hours without clear career paths or pay that matches the added responsibility, and two have already left. Volunteers, the organization's largest workforce, receive inconsistent training and little recognition, and some no longer return.

Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) argued, drawing on studies across industries, that organizations that put people first, through practices such as employment security, selective hiring, self-managed teams, comparatively high pay tied to performance, extensive training, reduced status differences and sharing of information, achieve better financial and operational results. The authors noted that many organizations know this but fail to act on it because short-term cost pressures dominate.

For a nonprofit, high pay may not be possible, but several practices are: training, sharing information, reducing status distinctions between headquarters and pantry staff and giving teams real decision authority.

What Each Frame Reveals and Misses

The structural frame explains why decisions stall and volunteers get conflicting instructions; it points to clearer roles and coordination. It misses why experienced people are leaving and why the merged pantry staff feel unheard. The human resource frame explains those feelings and the turnover; it points to training, voice and recognition. It misses the coordination failures that frustrate everyone. Using both shows that many people problems have structural causes, such as unclear authority, and that structural fixes will fail if people do not feel valued.

Volunteers as a Workforce

Volunteers deserve separate attention because they outnumber staff more than ten to one. The structural frame suggests a volunteer coordinator at each site, a single scheduling system and standard orientation. The human resource frame suggests matching volunteers to tasks they find meaningful, recognizing long-term volunteers and asking for their ideas. Both frames agree that inconsistent instructions waste goodwill.

Recommendations

Structure. Create three site manager roles with clear authority over daily operations and accountability for shared measures. Appoint an operations coordinator to standardize schedules, inventory and volunteer procedures across sites. Define which decisions belong to sites and which to headquarters.

People. Promote from within where possible, including from the merged pantries, and adjust pay for added responsibility within budget. Provide a common training program for staff and volunteers. Hold a monthly all-site meeting where pantry staff share neighborhood knowledge and help set priorities. Recognize volunteers at each site.

Evaluation. Track staff turnover, volunteer return rates, pounds distributed and time to fill volunteer shifts over the next year.

Conclusion

Valley Harvest's growing pains reflect a simple structure stretched beyond its limits and people whose needs and skills are not being met. The structural frame and research on organizational configurations point to clearer roles and site-based coordination; the human resource frame and research on people-centered practices point to training, voice and recognition. Together they suggest changes neither would recommend alone, and next week's political and symbolic frames will show what the merger means for power and identity.

References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (6th ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Mintzberg, H. (1980). Structure in 5's: A synthesis of the research on organization design. Management Science, 26(3), 322-341. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.26.3.322

Pfeffer, J., & Veiga, J. F. (1999). Putting people first for organizational success. Academy of Management Executive, 13(2), 37-48. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1999.1899547