| Course | MGT 500 Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 4 |
| Paper type | MBA organizing analysis |
| Length | About 1,035 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Master of Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGT 500 Module 4
Three Divisions, Forty-Six Coaches: Differentiation, Integration and Coordination at a Motorcoach Company
Student Name
Master of Business Administration, Aspen University
MGT 500: Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Three Divisions, Forty-Six Coaches: Differentiation, Integration and Coordination at a Motorcoach Company
Big Sky Coach Lines, a composite family-owned company in Billings, Montana, operates 46 motorcoaches and employs about 90 drivers. It has three divisions. Charter sells trips to sports teams, churches and companies. School contracts transport students for three rural school districts under multiyear agreements. Tours sells multi-day trips to Yellowstone, Glacier and other parks, mostly in summer. Each division has its own manager, sells its own trips and books coaches and drivers on its own spreadsheet. Last spring, eleven trips were double-booked, two charters were canceled at the last minute and drivers exceeded federal hours-of-service limits four times, drawing a warning from regulators. The owner wants to know how the company should be organized.
Why the Divisions Differ
Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) studied firms in industries with different levels of uncertainty and found that effective firms were highly differentiated, with units whose goals, time horizons and ways of working fit their own part of the environment, and also highly integrated, with strong mechanisms for joining those units' efforts. In uncertain environments, effective firms often used integrating roles, people whose job was to coordinate across units. At Big Sky, differentiation is appropriate. School contracts run on fixed routes and calendars; charters require fast quotes and flexibility; tours are planned a year ahead and sold to travelers who expect polished service. Forcing the three into one sales approach would harm each.
How the Divisions Depend on Each Other
Thompson (1967) sorted the ties between units into three kinds. Where units merely share a pool of resources and never hand work to one another, standard rules are enough to coordinate them. In sequential interdependence, one unit's output becomes another's input; it is coordinated by plans and schedules. In reciprocal interdependence, units' outputs become inputs for each other back and forth; it requires mutual adjustment through direct communication. Big Sky's divisions sell independently, a pooled relationship, but at the fleet level their dependence is reciprocal: a tour that runs late affects Monday's school routes, which affect which coaches are free for weekend charters. Rules alone cannot coordinate that.
Four Problems of Organizing
Puranam et al. (2014) argued that every organization, old or new, must solve four problems: task division, breaking the work into parts; task allocation, assigning parts to people or units; reward provision, motivating people to do their parts; and information provision, giving people what they need to coordinate. Big Sky has solved task division and allocation for selling but not for scheduling, rewards each division manager on its own revenue, which encourages grabbing coaches, and lacks a shared source of information.
Options
| Option | Coordination fit | Effect on differentiation | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merge into one sales and dispatch office | Strong | Weak; loses specialized selling | School and tour customers lose dedicated contacts |
| Matrix: dispatch reports to both owner and division managers | Moderate | Kept | Two bosses; slow decisions |
| Shared dispatch center with an integrating manager | Strong for reciprocal fleet dependence | Kept | Requires a capable manager and shared software |
Recommendation
Big Sky should keep its three divisions for selling and serving customers and create a shared dispatch center, led by a dispatch manager who assigns every coach and driver for all divisions. This is the integrating role Lawrence and Lorsch describe, and it handles reciprocal dependence through daily mutual adjustment at one desk. All bookings will enter one scheduling system, solving information provision. When two divisions want the same coach, the dispatch manager decides using a published priority: safety and hours limits first, school contracts second because of their legal commitments, then whichever trip was confirmed first. Division managers' bonuses will add a measure of company-wide fleet use, so they share in the whole rather than competing for parts.
What the Dispatch Manager Needs
An integrating role works only with the right person and enough authority. The dispatch manager should know all three businesses, which points to the current school contracts supervisor, who has scheduled drivers for ten years. She will have final authority over coach and driver assignments and will report directly to the owner, so division managers cannot overrule her. Scheduling software that shows every booking, driver's hours and coach's maintenance status will cost about $14,000 a year and replace three spreadsheets.
How Divisions Will Sell
Division managers will still quote and sell, but before confirming any trip they will check availability in the shared system. Tours, sold up to a year ahead, will reserve coaches in a block each spring, subject to the school calendar. Charters, sold on short notice, will use what remains, and the dispatch manager will tell charter staff each Monday which coaches are free for the following weeks.
Drivers' View
Drivers have suffered most from the current structure, receiving conflicting instructions from three managers. With one dispatcher, each driver will receive one weekly schedule that respects hours limits and preferences where possible. Several drivers said in interviews that knowing their schedule a week ahead would matter more to them than a raise.
Introducing the Change
The shared center will open after the summer tour season, when bookings are lightest. For the first month, division managers will sit with the dispatch manager each morning to learn the new process and raise conflicts early. The owner will review the first three priority disputes personally to show that the published rule, not seniority, decides.
Costs and Benefits
The dispatch manager role adds about $68,000 a year in salary and benefits, partly offset by ending the scheduling work division managers now do on their own. Each double-booked trip last spring cost an average of $2,400 in refunds, rentals from other operators and lost goodwill, and the hours violations risked fines far larger. The company expects the center to pay for itself within a year.
Measures
The company will track double-bookings, hours-of-service violations, coach utilization and last-minute cancellations each month.
Conclusion
Big Sky's divisions should differ, but they share one fleet. Lawrence and Lorsch's research supports keeping their differences while adding an integrating role, Thompson's framework shows why that role is needed and Puranam, Alexy and Reitzig's four problems show where the current structure falls short. A shared dispatch center joins the divisions where their work truly meets.
References
Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Differentiation and integration in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(1), 1-47. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391211
Puranam, P., Alexy, O., & Reitzig, M. (2014). What's "new" about new forms of organizing? Academy of Management Review, 39(2), 162-180. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.0436
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory. McGraw-Hill.
Reading the MGT 500 Module 4 assignment instructions
Organizing, how work is divided and coordinated, is a core MBA management topic at Aspen. A paper here commonly diagnoses a structure that is not working and recommends a better way to divide and connect the work. Scope comes from your section's Module 4 prompt; the example here works through one transportation company. Describe the current structure and its symptoms. Explain how and why units differ. Identify the kind of dependence among them. Use research to match coordination methods to that dependence. Compare structural options and recommend one, with roles, decision rights and measures, and explain how the change will be introduced.
How this MGT 500 Module 4 example is built
The paper opens with Big Sky Coach Lines, which runs charters for teams and groups, contracts to bus students for three school districts and sells multi-day tours to national parks. Each division books coaches and drivers separately. Last spring, eleven trips were double-booked and drivers exceeded federal hours limits four times. Lawrence and Lorsch's Administrative Science Quarterly study found that high-performing firms matched differentiation with strong integration. Thompson's book on organizations in action distinguishes pooled, sequential and reciprocal interdependence, coordinated by standardization, plans and mutual adjustment. Puranam, Alexy and Reitzig's Academy of Management Review article names task division, task allocation, reward provision and information provision. A table compares a single dispatch office, a matrix and a shared dispatch center with an integrating manager. The recommendation keeps three divisions for selling and creates one center for scheduling.
Where the marks sit in the MGT 500 Module 4 rubric
Organizing papers are graded on a clear diagnosis tied to research, an accurate match between the kind of interdependence and the coordination method and a recommendation that specifies roles and decision rights. This example shows that the divisions should differ in how they sell and serve customers but must coordinate tightly over a shared fleet. Thompson's framework identifies the interdependence as reciprocal at the fleet level, which explains why rules and spreadsheets alone have failed. Lawrence and Lorsch's research supports an integrating role. Puranam, Alexy and Reitzig's four problems organize the recommendation, and the paper names who fills the integrating role and what authority she holds.
MGT 500 Module 4 help: mistakes that cost marks
Organizing papers often redraw the chart without asking what kind of coordination the work needs. Identify how units depend on each other and choose coordination methods that fit. Another weakness is eliminating useful differences between units in the name of efficiency; differentiation can be valuable. Use research on integration and on how interdependence shapes coordination. Specify decision rights, such as who assigns a coach when two divisions want it. Include measures of whether coordination improves. Finally, consider people, since new roles succeed only with the right person and authority. Describe how the change looks to frontline staff.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More MGT 500 and Master of Business Administration sample papers
- MGT 500 Module 1: Managers and Management Practices
- MGT 500 Module 2: Planning and Goal Setting
- MGT 500 Module 3: Managerial Decision Making
- MGT 500 Module 5: Managing People and Teams
- MGT 500 Module 6: Leading and Motivating Employees
- MGT 500 Module 7: Controlling and Performance Measurement
- MGT 500 Module 8: Current Issues and an Integrated Management Plan
- MGT 514 Module 2: Attitudes, Values and Emotions at Work
- MGT 530 Module 4: Transformational, Servant and Authentic Leadership
- MGT 646 Module 5: Cost and Budget
- MGT 645 Module 8: Uncertainty and Tailoring
MGT 500 Module 4 questions, answered
What does MGT 500 Module 4 usually ask for?
Aspen's MGT 500 covers organizing in this module, so an MBA paper diagnosing a structure and recommending how to divide and coordinate work is typical. Look at your classroom prompt.
What are differentiation and integration?
Lawrence and Lorsch's terms for how much units differ in goals and ways of working, and how well their efforts are joined; effective firms in uncertain markets had high levels of both.
What are the types of interdependence?
Thompson described pooled, sequential and reciprocal interdependence, which call for coordination by standardization, by plan and by mutual adjustment.
Where can I find a free MGT 500 Module 4 sample paper?
The example above reorganizes a motorcoach company whose three divisions share one fleet, recommending a shared dispatch center with an integrating manager.
What problems must every organization solve?
Puranam, Alexy and Reitzig identify task division, task allocation, reward provision and information provision.