Each of the members of the various schools was, in effect, commenting on the factors
affecting organization structure as considered below.
Organization structure defined
All organizations have some form of more or less formalized structure which has been defined by Child (1977) as comprising ‘all the tangible and regularly occurring features which help to shape their members’ behaviour’. Structures incorporate a network of roles and relationships and are there to help in the process of ensuring that collective effort is explicitly organized to achieve specified ends.
Organizations vary in their complexity, but it is always necessary to divide the overall management task into a variety of activities, to allocate these activities to the different parts of the organization and to establish means of controlling, coordinating and integrating them.
The structure of an organization can be regarded as a framework for getting things done. It consists of units, functions, divisions, departments and formally constituted work teams into which activities related to particular processes, projects, products, markets, customers, geographical areas or professional disciplines are grouped together. The structure indicates who is accountable for directing, coordinating and carrying out these activities and defines management hierarchies – the ‘chain of command’ – thus spelling out, broadly, who is responsible to whom for what at each level in the organization.
Organization charts
Structures are usually described in the form of an organization chart. This places individuals in boxes that denote their job and their position in the hierarchy and traces the direct lines of authority (command and control) through the management hierarchies.
Organization charts are vertical in their nature and therefore misrepresent reality. They do not give any indication of the horizontal and diagonal relationships that exist within the framework between people in different units or departments, and do not recognize the fact that within any one hierarchy, commands and control information do not travel all the way down and up the structure as the chart implies. In practice, information jumps (especially computer-generated information) and managers or team leaders will interact with people at levels below those immediately beneath them
Organization charts have their uses as means of defining – simplistically – who does what and hierarchical lines of authority. But even if backed up by organization manuals (which no one reads and which are, in any case, out of date as soon as they are produced), they cannot convey how the organization really works. They may, for example, lead to definitions of jobs – what people are expected to do – but they cannot convey the roles these people carry out in the organization; the parts they play in interacting with others and the ways in which, like actors, they interpret the parts they are given
Organization structure defined
All organizations have some form of more or less formalized structure which has been defined by Child (1977) as comprising ‘all the tangible and regularly occurring features which help to shape their members’ behaviour’. Structures incorporate a network of roles and relationships and are there to help in the process of ensuring that collective effort is explicitly organized to achieve specified ends.
Organizations vary in their complexity, but it is always necessary to divide the overall management task into a variety of activities, to allocate these activities to the different parts of the organization and to establish means of controlling, coordinating and integrating them.
The structure of an organization can be regarded as a framework for getting things done. It consists of units, functions, divisions, departments and formally constituted work teams into which activities related to particular processes, projects, products, markets, customers, geographical areas or professional disciplines are grouped together. The structure indicates who is accountable for directing, coordinating and carrying out these activities and defines management hierarchies – the ‘chain of command’ – thus spelling out, broadly, who is responsible to whom for what at each level in the organization.
Organization charts
Structures are usually described in the form of an organization chart. This places individuals in boxes that denote their job and their position in the hierarchy and traces the direct lines of authority (command and control) through the management hierarchies.
Organization charts are vertical in their nature and therefore misrepresent reality. They do not give any indication of the horizontal and diagonal relationships that exist within the framework between people in different units or departments, and do not recognize the fact that within any one hierarchy, commands and control information do not travel all the way down and up the structure as the chart implies. In practice, information jumps (especially computer-generated information) and managers or team leaders will interact with people at levels below those immediately beneath them
Organization charts have their uses as means of defining – simplistically – who does what and hierarchical lines of authority. But even if backed up by organization manuals (which no one reads and which are, in any case, out of date as soon as they are produced), they cannot convey how the organization really works. They may, for example, lead to definitions of jobs – what people are expected to do – but they cannot convey the roles these people carry out in the organization; the parts they play in interacting with others and the ways in which, like actors, they interpret the parts they are given
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