A flat, or rather horizontal, managerial structure is an organizational structure

which features:

- Relatively few layers of management between the top of the corporation

and bottom level employees;

- And a large number of persons being directly supervised by each

manager

The advantages of a flat structure revolve around its decentralization and

include;

- Increased productivity as employers are more directly involved in decision

making process, rather than closely supervised by many layers of
management and bear more responsibility

- Increased ability to adapt to changing or turbulent circumstances due to

decentralized authority to make decisions

- Increased coordination and timely spread of information among different

departments along with good personal relationships allow policies within
the organisation to be implemented quickly and also improves customer
relationships

- Smaller resource commitments to the task of employee supervision

The possible ‘cons’ or drawbacks of this model include:

- The increased individual responsibility and reliance on own resources that

each manger in a flat organisation must assume.

- Due to the need to establish personal relationships between workers and

managers the structure may be more time consuming to build than a
traditional bureaucratic model.

- Group and team conflicts may be frequent due to more people being
directly involved in decision making

Over the past decade there has been a general trend for organizations to move
towards flatter managerial structures. This has been particularly true for
consumer goods organizations where twice as many organisations within the
“top 100 brands” of consumer goods employ a flat rather than hierarchal model.
Other organizations which typically employ a flatter structure include;

- Small organizations

- Large organizations with smaller individual units

- Organizations which aim for a less bureaucratic system

- Organizations which promote individual responsibility and employee
involvement