Why Organizations Need Structure
As organizations grow, work becomes more complex. People need to know what jobs they are responsible for, who has authority to make decisions, how departments communicate, and how resources are allocated. Organizational structure provides that framework.
The Chapter 8 presentation begins with a basic organizing process:
- Create a division of labor.
- Set up teams or departments.
- Allocate resources.
- Assign tasks.
- Establish procedures.
- Adjust to new realities.
The final step is especially important. Organizational structures are not permanent. Markets, technology, customer expectations, competition, and the workforce change, so companies often reorganize to remain effective.
Economies of Scale and Growth
Economies of scale occur when companies can reduce production costs as they grow, such as by purchasing large quantities of raw materials. As production levels rise, the average cost of goods may decline.
Growth can create cost advantages, but it also creates organizational complexity. More employees, departments, products, and locations require systems that coordinate work and clarify authority.
Fayol's Principles of Organization
Henri Fayol developed influential principles for organizing and managing large organizations. The Chapter 8 presentation emphasizes ideas including:
- Unity of command — an employee should have one direct boss.
- Hierarchy of authority — authority moves through levels of the organization.
- Division of labor — work is divided so people can specialize.
- Subordination of individual interests to the general interest — organizational goals take precedence over individual preferences.
- Authority — managers need sufficient authority to carry out responsibilities.
- Degree of centralization — organizations must decide how concentrated decision authority should be.
- Clear communication channels.
- Order.
- Equity.
- Esprit de corps — unity and team spirit.
These principles can create clarity, but highly rigid application can also reduce flexibility and slow an organization's response to customers and changing conditions.
Weber and Bureaucratic Organization
Max Weber also emphasized formal organization. The presentation describes principles such as:
- Clear job descriptions.
- Written rules and decision guidelines.
- Detailed records.
- Consistent procedures, regulations, and policies.
- Staffing and promotion based on qualifications.
These ideas can help large organizations operate consistently. However, too many layers, rules, and approvals can create a bureaucracy—an organization in which many managers oversee decisions through extensive rules and regulations. Bureaucratic systems can become slow and frustrating for employees and customers.
Hierarchy and Chain of Command
A hierarchy is an organizational structure with one person at the top and ranked levels below. The chain of command is the line of authority that moves from the top of the hierarchy to the lowest level.
These concepts answer basic questions such as: Who reports to whom? Who can make a decision? Where does an employee go for approval? Clear authority can reduce confusion, but too many levels can slow communication and decision making.
Centralized and Decentralized Authority
Centralized authority concentrates decision making at the top levels of management. This can help maintain consistency on major policies, goals, and strategies.
Decentralized authority gives lower-level managers and employees greater authority to make decisions. This can improve responsiveness, particularly when employees closest to customers understand local conditions better than distant headquarters.
The presentation makes an important practical point: decisions involving overall company policy may appropriately remain near the top, while customer-facing decisions often benefit from being made closer to the customer.
Span of Control
Span of control is the optimal number of subordinates a manager supervises or should supervise. The appropriate span depends on the work being performed.
When work is standardized and employees are well trained, one manager may successfully supervise a larger number of people. At higher organizational levels, where work is more complex and less routine, a narrower span may be appropriate.
Tall and Flat Organizational Structures
A tall organizational structure contains many layers of management. A flat organizational structure has relatively few management layers and typically a broader span of control.
Tall Structures
Tall structures can provide close supervision and clear promotion levels, but they may also increase administrative costs and slow communication and decision making.
Flat Structures
Flat structures can shorten communication paths and give employees more responsibility. They may help organizations respond more quickly, although managers may need to supervise more employees.
The presentation notes a trend toward reducing layers of middle management and relying on capable lower-level employees.
Departmentalization
Departmentalization divides an organization into separate units. Employees may be grouped according to skills, expertise, functions, products, customers, geography, or other logical categories.
Advantages of Departmentalization
- Employees can develop specialized skills within a department.
- Organizations may achieve economies of scale.
- Employees performing related work can coordinate more easily.
- Top management can direct major functional activities more clearly.
Disadvantages of Departmentalization
- Departments may fail to communicate effectively with one another.
- Employees may identify more strongly with departmental goals than with organizational goals.
- Responses to external change may become slow.
- Employees may become narrow specialists rather than developing broader management abilities.
- Departments can develop groupthink and may benefit from outside viewpoints.
Organizations must therefore balance the efficiency of specialization with the need for communication and cooperation across departments.
Line Organizations
A line organization has direct two-way lines of responsibility, authority, and communication running from the top to the bottom. Everyone reports to one supervisor.
In a pure line organization, there are no separate specialist departments such as legal, human resources, information technology, or marketing research. This simplicity can work well in some smaller organizations, but larger organizations often need specialists.
Line-and-Staff Organizations
A line-and-staff structure combines employees directly responsible for organizational goals with specialists who advise and support them.
- Line personnel have authority to make some policy decisions and are directly responsible for achieving organizational goals.
- Staff personnel advise and assist line personnel. Examples may include employees in legal advising, information technology, human resources, or marketing research.
This arrangement lets an organization retain clear lines of authority while gaining specialized expertise.
Matrix Organizations
A matrix organization brings specialists from different parts of the organization together temporarily to work on specific projects while they remain part of their regular line-and-staff structure.
Matrix structures emphasize product development, creativity, special projects, communication, and teamwork.
Advantages of the Matrix Style
- Managers gain flexibility when assigning people to projects.
- Interdepartmental cooperation and teamwork are encouraged.
- Different specialists can contribute creative solutions.
- Organizational resources can be used efficiently across projects.
Disadvantages of the Matrix Style
- The structure can be costly and complex.
- Employees may be confused about where their loyalty belongs.
- Strong interpersonal and cooperation skills are necessary.
- Project teams are often temporary.
Building Successful Teams
The presentation identifies several conditions that help small teams succeed:
- Clear purpose.
- Clear goals.
- Correct skills.
- Mutual accountability.
- The willingness to shift roles when appropriate.
Teams work best when members understand why the team exists, what results are expected, and how each member contributes.
Networking and Real-Time Business
Networking uses communications technology to link organizations so they can work together. Modern businesses often depend on suppliers, contractors, partners, and customers connected electronically rather than operating as completely self-sufficient organizations.
Real time refers to the present moment or actual time in which something occurs. Real-time information allows businesses to respond quickly to changes in orders, inventory, customer needs, and market conditions.
Transparency and Virtual Corporations
Transparency occurs when companies are so open to one another that electronic information is shared almost as if the separate organizations were one.
A virtual corporation is a temporary networked organization made up of replaceable firms that join and leave as needed. The presentation describes a virtual corporation as an organization stripped toward its core competencies while other functions may be performed through joint ventures, temporary alliances, consulting, outsourcing, or subcontracting.
Benchmarking and Core Competencies
Benchmarking compares an organization's practices, processes, and products against the world's best. The purpose is to learn from superior performance and identify ways to improve.
Core competencies are functions an organization can perform as well as or better than any other organization in the world. A firm can focus on its strongest capabilities while obtaining other services from partners or outside specialists.
Adapting to Change and Restructuring
Organizations must adapt as technology, customers, competition, and markets change. Restructuring means redesigning an organization so it can serve customers more effectively and efficiently.
Restructuring may involve eliminating outdated processes or equipment, changing management layers, redesigning departments, adopting new technology, or changing how employees interact with customers.
Inverted Organizations
An inverted organization places customer-contact people conceptually at the top of the organizational chart and the CEO at the bottom. The idea is that managers exist to support frontline employees rather than simply command them.
This reverses the visual image of a traditional hierarchy and emphasizes service, empowerment, and the importance of employees who interact directly with customers.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is the widely shared set of values within an organization that fosters unity and cooperation toward common goals. Culture can be communicated through stories, traditions, expectations, shared experiences, and accepted ways of behaving.
A strong culture can help an organization adapt to change when employees understand the organization's values and use them to guide decisions.
Formal and Informal Organization
The formal organization identifies official lines of responsibility, authority, and position. Organization charts, job titles, reporting relationships, and formal policies are part of this structure.
The informal organization consists of relationships that develop spontaneously as employees meet, communicate, and form relationships. Informal relationships can support camaraderie and teamwork, but they can also create pressure to conform to group norms or resist management directives.
Effective organizations depend on both systems. The formal organization clarifies authority, while the informal organization reflects the human relationships through which much everyday communication and cooperation occur.
Putting It Together
Organizational structure is not simply a chart showing job titles. It determines how authority, communication, specialization, teamwork, and decision making operate throughout the company.
Traditional principles from Fayol and Weber provide clarity and consistency, but modern organizations also need flexibility. Decentralization, flatter structures, matrix teams, networking, virtual organizations, benchmarking, restructuring, and strong organizational cultures are all ways organizations try to remain responsive while coordinating complex work.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Confusing hierarchy with chain of command. Hierarchy is the ranked structure; chain of command is the line of authority through it.
- Assuming centralization is always bad or decentralization is always good. Different decisions may belong at different levels.
- Confusing span of control with the number of levels in the organization.
- Assuming departmentalization improves communication automatically. It can also create departmental silos.
- Confusing line personnel with staff personnel.
- Assuming employees in a matrix organization leave their regular departments permanently.
- Confusing benchmarking with core competencies. Benchmarking compares performance; core competencies identify what the organization does exceptionally well.
- Thinking the informal organization is unimportant simply because it does not appear on an organizational chart.