Organisations Structures

and Systems
Ashutosh Murti
ashutosh@iimshillong.ac.in
Effects of Departmentalization

How are employees and their activities grouped together?

• Areas of common supervision
• Establishes work teams and supervision structure
• Creates common resources, measures of performance,
etc
• Encourages informal communication among people and
subunits
5 pure types of departmentalization…
 Simple

• Few employees reporting directly to one person (owner)

Owner

Employee Employee Employee

Functional Organizational Structure

•Organizes employees around skills or other resources

(marketing, production)
•Create subordinate goals

President

Finance Production Marketing

Divisionalized Structure

Organizes employees around outputs, clients, or geographic areas

President

Enterprise Laserjet Consumer

Systems Solutions Products
Project-based Matrix Structure

Employees are temporarily assigned to a specific project team

and have a permanent functional unit
President

Engineering Marketing Software

Manager Manager Manager

Project A
Manager

Project B
Manager

Project C
Manager
 HYBRID Structures

• Parts are combined to maintain balance of power and

effectiveness across functional, product, geographic and client
focused units
Network/Virtual Organizational Structure

Product Marketing
Development Firm
Firm (U.K.)
(France)
Core
Firm
(Canada)
Customer
Production
Service
Firm
Firm
(China)
(U.S.A.)
Accounting
Firm
(Canada)
Say hello to holacracy. It’s the latest method of operating an organization that removes power
from a traditional leadership hierarchy and distributes it to every employee in an organization.
Questions

• Q1. What are the advantages of a holacracy

model in the workplace?
• Q2. What are some major problems that can
occur with a holacracy model in the workplace?
• Q3. When implementing a holacratic workplace
model, what should be the most important
considerations for HR?
• Q4. What recruiting, performance management
and other HR challenges do organizations with
holacracy face?
• Q5. Is holacracy the key to fixing low levels of
engagement in the workplace? Why or why not?
 Be the Consultant:
• The Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers (NSASW) contracted your
management consulting firm to conduct an operational structure review.49 The
size of social worker governance councils varies across Canada, with larger
associations like NSASW having professional staff to carry out association
activities. The NSASW has a governance council of 30, as well as a Board of
Examiners to provide oversight for the association. The Council is the
governance body for the association and is responsible to follow the association
bylaws and the Social Workers Act of Nova Scotia. The Board is responsible for
registration and renewal of provincial social workers, regulation of the
members’ practice to protect the public, and dealing with discipline and
complaints.
• The Council and the Board have a difficult relationship, and staff roles,
responsibilities, and reporting relationships are not clearly defined. The
executive director complains about being stressed and overworked and is not
conducting performance evaluations. The membership has increased
dramatically, putting a burden on the association’s financial resources, staff,
and volunteers. Your analysis leads you to discover that Council meetings
regularly run late and not all of the agenda items are accomplished. Consensus
is almost impossible to reach, and decision making is ineffective at times. The
Board plays a valuable role in assuring the public and professional interests are
safeguarded, but no formal communication mechanism between the Board and
the Council has been established.
You provided an interim report with many recommendations.
Specifically, the Board has brought you in to discuss three of
your recommendations:
1. Reduction of the governance council size to 15 members
2. Creation of a liaison committee to work with both the
Council and the Board to develop a stronger working
and reporting relationship
3. Formal approval of staff position descriptions by
Council, with the executive director responsible for
their implementation, to facilitate the association’s
performance management system
What information will you provide to the Council to support
your recommendations?