care may result in more case findings that require referrals to other providers, thus increasing costs of follow-up. This ripple effect necessarily leads to new rounds of problem solving.
Implications for the Public Health Manager
Problem solving is a major responsibility of managers at all levels. When done effectively, resource allocation and consumption are superior and results are more consistent with those desired. Managers’ skills in problem solving, including decision making, are directly reflected in the quality of solutions and interventions. Designing Formal Organizations
The organizing function, which encompasses the design (and redesign) of organizations, has its genesis in the planning function. Senior managers and, depending on the scope of decisions being made, the governing body are concerned with such broad aspects of organizing as authority and responsibility relationships, departmentation, and coordination and relationships of components whether within an organization or among the elements in a system of organizations. Lower level (operational) managers are concerned with individual positions, aggregations of individual positions into workgroups, and clusters of workgroups. The work of classical management theorists such as Max Weber, Henri Fayol, and Chester Barnard established a theoretical basis for organizational design in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their concepts of division of Introduction to Management and Leadership Concepts, Principles, and Practices work, authority and responsibility relationships, departmentation, span of control, and coordination have been complemented by contemporary theorists. Figure 2-4 shows levels of organization design.
Classical Concepts
The historical roots of organizational design theory some of which date from the 19th century continue to be important in contemporary management. Many design concepts can be traced to the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the organizational structures of European and American armies.
Weber and Bureaucracy