netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Assurant is a specialty insurance company headquartered in New York City. Assurant’s four businesses provide a wide range of insurance products and related services, including creditor-placed homeowners insurance, manufactured housing homeowners insurance, credit insurance, individual health and small employer group health insurance, group dental insurance, group disability insurance, group life insurance, pre-funded funeral insurance, and extended warranties for electronics, appliances, and vehicles. The Fortune 500 company distributes its insurance products and services through various distribution channels.[3]
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2
CEO
Robert Pollock
3
Chairman of the Board
John Palms
2
Director
Howard Carver
2
Director
Allen Freedman
2
Director
Juan Cento
3
Director
David Kelso
3
Director
Beth Bronner
4
Director
John Swainson
2
Director
Elaine Rosen
5
Director
Lawrence Jackson
Director
Charles John Koch
Director
Carroll Mackin
CFO
Michael Peninger
Executive Vice President
LS
Assurance Health
DH
2
Legal & Secretary
Bart Schwartz
Human Resources & Development
SW
Assurant Solutions
CL
Assurant Specialty Property
GM
25
Assurant Employee Benefits
John Roberts
5
Investor Relations
John Egan
Treasurer & Investment
CP
Control & Accounting
JS
Organizational Structure
"Structure is an entity (such as an organization) made up of elements or parts (such as people, resources, aspirations, market trends, levels of competence, reward systems, departmental mandates, and so on) that impact each other by the relationship they form. A structural relationship is one in which the various parts act upon each other, and consequently generate particular types of behavior." (Fritz, 1996:4)
In his classic Corporate Tides, Fritz points out that, in practice, organizational structures are rarely designed in a deliberate manner. Small structures grow into larger ones and individual units become the focus of managerial power. Fritz says that (1996:5): 'Departments and divisions become entrenched as power systems.' Any structural change is likely to meet resistance from these power systems.
Fritz also argues that organizations are structured either to advance or to oscillate. Advancement is a positive move from on state to another that acts as a foundation for further advances. Fundamental to structural advancement is the concept of resolution when an outcome is achieved and a particular problem is resolved. According to Fritz (1996:6), management in an organization that is structured to advance coordinate 'individual acts into an organizational tapestry of effective strategy.' When all the individuals in this utopian organization are acting together, the result is synergy, allowing the achievement of 'enormous feats.'
The alternative is structural oscillation. Fritz (1996:6) explains this: 'Oscillating behavior is that which moves from one place to another, but then moves back towards its original position.' So many organizations set out on some change program, full of enthusiasm and energy. But, six months later, the enthusiasm has evaporated and the program peters out leaving very little changed.
Labovitz and Rosansky (1997:7) consider that senior managers can achieve alignment to ensure advancement through:
* Carefully crafting and articulating the essence of their business and determining the Main Thing.
* Defining a few critical strategic goals and imperatives and deploying them throughout their organizations.
* Tying performance measures and metrics to those goals.
* Linking those measures to a system of rewards and recognition
* Personally reviewing the performance of their people to ensure the goals are met.
Labovitz and Rosansky criticize traditional structures of organization that are based on the notion of breaking up a managerial problem into pieces: departments and divisions. As they point out (1997:8): "Psychologists have long recognized that human beings like people who are like themselves and tend to reject people who are different from them. Yet organizations continue to create differences between people in the interest of efficiency. Line versus staff, management versus labor, field versus corporate, international versus domestic, East versus West, accounting versus sales - the list goes on. No wonder it's so hard to focus people around common goals when they are so different from each other simply by virtue of what they do and where they do it. Specialization and expertise can be a wedge that drives people further apart and makes it difficult for them to work together argues that whereas strategic choice and organizational design are are immensely complex - indeed, 'mindbogglingly complicated' - there is an underlying logic based on the concept of 'fit'
Certain strategies and organizational designs do fit one another and the environment, and thus produce good performance, and others do not. Moreover, there are frequently recognizable, understandable, and predictable relations among the environmental features and the choice variables of strategy and organization that determine which constellations of choices will do well and which are less likely to do so. These relations arise for both technological and behavioral reasons. Recognizing these relations and understanding their implications can guide the design problem.
I certify that my modifications are exact
Confirm Cancel
2
CEO
Robert Pollock
3
Chairman of the Board
John Palms
2
Director
Howard Carver
2
Director
Allen Freedman
2
Director
Juan Cento
3
Director
David Kelso
3
Director
Beth Bronner
4
Director
John Swainson
2
Director
Elaine Rosen
5
Director
Lawrence Jackson
Director
Charles John Koch
Director
Carroll Mackin
CFO
Michael Peninger
Executive Vice President
LS
Assurance Health
DH
2
Legal & Secretary
Bart Schwartz
Human Resources & Development
SW
Assurant Solutions
CL
Assurant Specialty Property
GM
25
Assurant Employee Benefits
John Roberts
5
Investor Relations
John Egan
Treasurer & Investment
CP
Control & Accounting
JS
Organizational Structure
"Structure is an entity (such as an organization) made up of elements or parts (such as people, resources, aspirations, market trends, levels of competence, reward systems, departmental mandates, and so on) that impact each other by the relationship they form. A structural relationship is one in which the various parts act upon each other, and consequently generate particular types of behavior." (Fritz, 1996:4)
In his classic Corporate Tides, Fritz points out that, in practice, organizational structures are rarely designed in a deliberate manner. Small structures grow into larger ones and individual units become the focus of managerial power. Fritz says that (1996:5): 'Departments and divisions become entrenched as power systems.' Any structural change is likely to meet resistance from these power systems.
Fritz also argues that organizations are structured either to advance or to oscillate. Advancement is a positive move from on state to another that acts as a foundation for further advances. Fundamental to structural advancement is the concept of resolution when an outcome is achieved and a particular problem is resolved. According to Fritz (1996:6), management in an organization that is structured to advance coordinate 'individual acts into an organizational tapestry of effective strategy.' When all the individuals in this utopian organization are acting together, the result is synergy, allowing the achievement of 'enormous feats.'
The alternative is structural oscillation. Fritz (1996:6) explains this: 'Oscillating behavior is that which moves from one place to another, but then moves back towards its original position.' So many organizations set out on some change program, full of enthusiasm and energy. But, six months later, the enthusiasm has evaporated and the program peters out leaving very little changed.
Labovitz and Rosansky (1997:7) consider that senior managers can achieve alignment to ensure advancement through:
* Carefully crafting and articulating the essence of their business and determining the Main Thing.
* Defining a few critical strategic goals and imperatives and deploying them throughout their organizations.
* Tying performance measures and metrics to those goals.
* Linking those measures to a system of rewards and recognition
* Personally reviewing the performance of their people to ensure the goals are met.
Labovitz and Rosansky criticize traditional structures of organization that are based on the notion of breaking up a managerial problem into pieces: departments and divisions. As they point out (1997:8): "Psychologists have long recognized that human beings like people who are like themselves and tend to reject people who are different from them. Yet organizations continue to create differences between people in the interest of efficiency. Line versus staff, management versus labor, field versus corporate, international versus domestic, East versus West, accounting versus sales - the list goes on. No wonder it's so hard to focus people around common goals when they are so different from each other simply by virtue of what they do and where they do it. Specialization and expertise can be a wedge that drives people further apart and makes it difficult for them to work together argues that whereas strategic choice and organizational design are are immensely complex - indeed, 'mindbogglingly complicated' - there is an underlying logic based on the concept of 'fit'
Certain strategies and organizational designs do fit one another and the environment, and thus produce good performance, and others do not. Moreover, there are frequently recognizable, understandable, and predictable relations among the environmental features and the choice variables of strategy and organization that determine which constellations of choices will do well and which are less likely to do so. These relations arise for both technological and behavioral reasons. Recognizing these relations and understanding their implications can guide the design problem.
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