Shawshank Redemption Essay

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Shawshank Redemption In Organizational Behavior we discussed the design of organizational structures. Organizational structure can be described as the framework where various work roles and responsibilities are delegated, controlled, and coordinated. Organizational structure includes two distinct functions; the division of labor and the coordination of labor, which helps the employees/peoples accomplish common goals. Shawshank Redemption is centered on the Shawshank Prison where Andy Dufresne, a falsely accused and convicted murderer, spends twenty years becoming accustomed to prison life. The obvious theme that can be drawn from the movie is that the prison has a mechanistic structure. According to Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality, a mechanistic structure is characterized as an organizational structure with a narrow span of control and high degree of formalization and centralization. Before entering the prison, Andy and the new prisoners were greeted by Captain Byron Hadley and Warden Norton. When one of the prisoners asks when will they eat, Captain Byron Hadley responds “You eat when we say you eat! You piss when we say you piss! You shit when we say you shit! You sleep when we say you sleep!” The organizational hierarchy and structure is depicted by this response as well as when the prisoners are stripped down, deloused, and escorted to their cells naked in front of the rest of the prisoners. This gave the other prisoners the opportunity to heckle and make crude comments as the naked prisoners passed. The mechanistic structure provides the prison with routine standards. Mechanistic structures work best in stable environments because they rely on efficiency and routine behaviors. Shawshank Prison revolves around routines patterns and to decrease the deficiency of manipulation, new rules and practices must be enforced. The
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