INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR; EMERGING KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE FOR THE REAL WORLD 5th ED.
AUTHOR: Steven L. McShane | Mary Ann Von Glinow
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The division of labor as well as the patterns of
coordination, communication, workflow, and formal
power that direct organizational activities.
2 fundamental processes in organizational structure:
division of labor & coordination (DC)
4 main elements of organizational structure:
span of control, centralization, formalization, and
departmentalization (SCFD)
Organizational structures are frequently used as tools for
organizational change because they establish new
communication patterns and align employee behavior
with the corporate vision.
DIVISION OF LABOR AND COORDINATION
Division of labor refers to the subdivision of work into
separate jobs assigned to different people. Subdivided
work leads to job specialization ,because each job now
includes a narrow subset of the tasks necessary to
complete the product or service.
Coordinating Work Activities
an organization should divide work among many people
only to the extent that those people can coordinate with
each other. Otherwise, individual effort is wasted due to
misalignment, duplication, and mis-timing of tasks.
Coordination also tends to become more expensive and
difficult as the division of labor increases, so companies
specialize jobs only to the point where it isn’t too costly
or challenging to coordinate the people in those jobs
TRANSCRIBED BY: MEYNARD P. OSTRIA
Coordination through Informal Communication
✓ Informal communication is a coordinating
mechanism in all organizations.
✓ It includes sharing information on mutual tasks
as well as forming common mental models so
that employees synchronize work activities using
the same mental road map.
✓ Informal communication is vital in non-routine
and ambiguous situations because employees
can exchange a large volume of information
through face-to-face communication and other
media-rich channels.
✓ Coordination through informal communication
is easiest in small firms
✓ Larger organizations also encourage
coordination through informal communication
by assigning liaison roles to employees, who are
expected to communicate and share
information with co-workers in other work units.
✓ Where coordination is required among several
work units, companies create integrator roles.
These people are responsible for coordinating a
work process by encouraging employees in each
work unit to share information and informally
coordinate work activities
✓ Integrators do not have authority over the
people involved in that process, so they must
rely on persuasion and commitment. Brand
managers at Procter & Gamble have integrator
roles because they coordinate work among
marketing, production, and design groups.
✓ Another way that larger organizations
encourage coordination through informal
communication is by organizing employees from
several departments into temporary teams. This
strategy occurs through concurrent engineering
in the product or service development process.
Traditional product development is a sequential
arrangement.
Coordination through Formal Hierarchy
✓ Informal communication is the most flexible
form of coordination, but it can become chaotic
as the number of interdependencies among
employees increases.
 ✓ Hierarchy assigns legitimate power to
individuals, who then use this power to direct
work processes and allocate resources. In other
words, work is coordinated through direct
supervision—the chain of command.
✓ The formal hierarchy has traditionally been
applauded as the optimal coordinating
mechanism for large organizations.
✓ The formal hierarchy also coordinates work
among executives through the division of
organizational activities. If the organization is
divided into geographic areas, the structure
gives the regional group leaders legitimate
power over executives responsible for
production, customer service, and other
activities in those areas.
✓ If the organization is divided into product
groups, the heads of those groups have the right
to coordinate work across regions.
✓ The formal hierarchy can be efficient for simple
and routine situations, but it is not as agile for
coordination in complex and novel situations.
Communicating through the chain of command
is rarely as fast or accurate as direct
communication between employees.
✓ Another concern with formal hierarchy is that
managers are able to closely supervise only a
limited number of employees. As the business
grows, the number of supervisors and layers of
management must increase, resulting in a costly
bureaucracy.
Coordination through Standardization
Standardization, the third means of coordination,
involves creating routine patterns of behavior or output.
This coordinating mechanism takes three distinct forms:
Standardized processes. Quality and consistency of a
product or service can often be improved by
standardizing work activities through job descriptions
and procedures. This coordinating mechanism is feasible
when the work is routine (such as mass production) or
simple (such as making pizzas), but it is less effective in
nonroutine and complex work such as product design.
Standardized outputs. This form of standardization
involves ensuring that individuals and work units have
clearly defined goals and output measures (e.g.,
customer satisfaction, production efficiency). For
instance, to coordinate the work of sales people,
companies assign sales targets rather than specific
behaviors.
Standardized skills. When work activities are too
complex to standardize through processes or goals,
companies often coordinate work effort by extensively
training employees or hiring people who have learned
precise role behaviors from educational programs. This
form of coordination is used in hospital operating rooms.
Surgeons, nurses, and other operating room
professionals coordinate their work more through
training than through goals or company rules
ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Every company is configured in terms of four basic
elements of organizational structure. This section
introduces three of them: span of control, centralization,
and formalization. The fourth element—
departmentalization
Span of Control
(also called span of management) The number of
people directly reporting to the next level in the
hierarchy.
A narrow span of control exists when very few
people report directly to a manager, whereas a
wide span exists when a manager has many
direct reports
Factors influencing the best span of control
1. Self-directed teams coordinate mainly through
informal communication and specialized
knowledge, so formal hierarchy plays a minor
role.
2. whether employees perform routine tasks. A
wider span of control is possible when
employees perform routine jobs, because there
is less frequent need for direction or advice from
supervisors. A narrow span of control is
necessary when employees perform novel or
complex tasks, because these employees tend to
require more supervisory decisions and
coaching.
3. degree of interdependence among employees
within the department or team. Generally, a
narrow span of control is necessary where
employees perform highly interdependent work
with others. More supervision is required for
highly interdependent jobs because employees
tend to experience more conflict with each
other, which requires more of a manager’s time
to resolve. Also, employees are less clear on
their personal work performance in highly
interdependent tasks, so supervisors spend
more time providing coaching and feedback.
Tall versus Flat Structures
Span of control is interconnected with organizational size
(number of employees) and the number of layers in the
organizational hierarchy.
Consider two companies with the same number of
employees.
If Company A has a wider span of control (more direct
reports per manager) than Company B, then Company A
must have fewer layers of management (i.e., a flatter
structure) than does Company B. The reason for this
relationship is that a company with a wider span of
control necessarily has more employees per supervisor,
more supervisors for each middle manager, and so on
Most companies end up building taller structures
because they rely on direct supervision to some extent
as a coordinating mechanism and there are limits to how
many people each manager can coordinate.
Problems in taller hierarchy
1st Tall structures have higher overhead costs because
most layers of hierarchy consist of managers rather than
employees who actually make the product or supply the
service
2nd Senior managers in tall structures often receive
lower-quality and less timely information from the
external environment because information from
frontline employees is transmitted slowly or not at all up
the hierarchy.
4th More layers of management through which
information must pass, the higher the probability that
managers will filter out information that does not put
them in a positive light.
5th Tall hierarchies tend to undermine employee
empowerment and engagement because they focus
power around managers rather than employees.
Although many companies enjoy reduced costs and
more empowered employees when they delayer the
organizational hierarchy, some organizational experts
warn that there are also negative long-term
consequences of cutting out too much middle
management. These include undermining necessary
managerial functions, increasing workload and stress
among management, and restricting managerial career
development
• Undermines managerial functions. Critics of
delayering point out that all companies need
managers to guide work activities, coach
subordinates, and manage company growth.
Furthermore, managers are needed to make
quick decisions and represent a source of appeal
over conflicts. These valuable functions are
underserved when the span of control becomes
too wide.
• Increases workload and stress. Delayering
increases the number of direct reports per
manager and thus significantly increases
management workload and corresponding levels
of stress. Managers partly reduce the workload
by learning to give subordinates more autonomy
rather than micromanaging them. However, this
role adjustment itself is stressful (same
responsibility, but less authority or control), and
many companies increase the span of control
beyond the point at which many managers are
capable of coaching or leading their direct
reports.
• Restricts managerial career development.
Delayering results in fewer managerial jobs, so
companies have less maneuverability to develop
managerial skills. Promotions are also riskier
because they involve a larger jump in
responsibility in flatter, compared to taller,
hierarchies. Furthermore, having fewer
promotion opportunities means that managers
experience more career plateauing, which
reduces their motivation and loyalty. Chopping
back managerial career structures also sends a
signal that managers are no longer valued.
“Delayering has had an adverse effect on
morale, productivity and performance,” argues a
senior executive in the Australian federal
government. “Disenfranchising middle
management creates negative perceptions and
lower commitment to the organization with
consequent reluctance to accept responsibility.
Centralization and Decentralization
Centralization means that formal decision-making
authority is held by a small group of people, typically
those at the top of the organizational hierarchy.
• Most organizations begin with centralized
structures, as the founder makes most of the
decisions and tries to direct the business toward
his or her vision.
• As organizations grow, however, they diversify
and their environments become more complex.
Senior executives aren’t able to process all the
decisions that significantly influence the
business.
• Consequently, larger organizations typically
decentralize; that is, they disperse decision
 authority and power throughout the
organization.
Formalization
Formalization is the degree to which organizations
standardize behavior through rules, procedures, formal
training, and related mechanisms.
• In other words, companies become more
formalized as they increasingly rely on various
forms of standardization to coordinate work.
• McDonald’s Restaurants and most other
efficient fast-food chains typically have a high
degree of formalization because they rely on
standardization of work processes as a
coordinating mechanism.
• Employees have precisely defined roles, right
down to how much mustard should be
dispensed, how many pickles should be applied,
and how long each hamburger should be
cooked.
• Older companies tend to become more
formalized because work activities become
routinized, making them easier to document
into standardized practices. Larger companies
also tend to have more formalization because
direct supervision and informal communication
among employees do not operate as easily when
large numbers of people are involved.
• External influences, such as government safety
legislation and strict accounting rules, also
encourage formalization.
Problems in Formalization
Formalization may increase efficiency and compliance,
but it can also create problems.
Rules and procedures reduce organizational flexibility, so
employees follow prescribed behaviors even when the
situation clearly calls for a customized response.
High levels of formalization tend to undermine
organizational learning and creativity.
Some work rules become so convoluted that
organizational efficiency would decline if they were
actually followed as prescribed.
Formalization is also a source of job dissatisfaction and
work stress. Finally, rules and procedures have been
known to take on a life of their own in some
organizations. They become the focus of attention rather
than the organization’s ultimate objectives of producing
a product or service and serving its dominant
stakeholders.
The challenge that companies face as they get larger and
older is to avoid too much formalization.
Mechanistic versus Organic Structures
Span of control, centralization, and formalization
together because they cluster around two broader
organizational forms: mechanistic and organic structures
A mechanistic structure is characterized by a narrow
span of control and high degree of formalization and
centralization.
Mechanistic structures have many rules and procedures,
limited decision making at lower levels, tall hierarchies of
people in specialized roles, and vertical rather than
horizontal communication flows. Tasks are rigidly
defined and are altered only when sanctioned by higher
authorities.
organic structure have the opposite characteristics. They
operate with a wide span of control, decentralized
decision making, and little formalization. Tasks are fluid,
adjusting to new situations and organizational needs.
mechanistic structures operate better in stable
environments because they rely on efficiency and
routine behaviors, whereas organic structures work
better in rapidly changing (i.e., dynamic) environments
because they are more flexible and responsive to the
changes.
Organic structures are also more compatible with
organizational learning, high-performance workplaces,
and quality management because they emphasize
information sharing and an empowered workforce
rather than hierarchy and status.
However, the advantages of organic structures, rather
than mechanistic structures, in dynamic environments
occur only when employees have developed well-
established roles and expertise. Without these
conditions, employees are unable to coordinate
effectively with each other, resulting in errors and gross
inefficiencies.
FORMS OF DEPARTMENTALIZATION
The organizational chart represents the fourth element
in the structuring of organizations, called
departmentalization.
Departmentalization specifies how employees and their
activities are grouped together. It is a fundamental
strategy for coordinating organizational activities
because it influences organizational behavior in the
following ways:
Departmentalization establishes the chain of
command—the system of common supervision
among positions and units within the
organization. It frames the membership of
formal work teams and typically determines
which positions and units must share resources.
Thus, departmentalization establishes
interdependencies among employees and
subunits.
Departmentalization focuses people around
common mental models or ways of thinking,
such as serving clients, developing products, or
supporting a particular skill set. This focus is
typically anchored around the common budgets
and measures of performance assigned to
employees within each departmental unit.
Departmentalization encourages coordination
through informal communication among people
and subunits. With common supervision and
resources, members within each configuration
typically work near each other, so they can use
frequent and informal interaction to get the
work done.
There are almost as many organizational charts as there
are businesses, but the six most common pure types of
departmentalization are simple, functional, divisional,
team-based, matrix, and network.
SIMPLE STRUCTURE
✓ Most companies begin with a simple structure.
✓ They employ only a few people and typically
offer only one distinct product or service.
✓ There is minimal hierarchy—usually just
employees reporting to the owners.
✓ Employees perform broadly defined roles
because there are insufficient economies of
scale to assign them to specialized jobs.
✓ The simple structure is highly flexible and
minimizes the walls that form between
employees in other structures.
✓ However, the simple structure usually depends
on the owner’s direct supervision to coordinate
work activities, so it is very difficult to operate as
the company grows and becomes more
complex.
Advantages of Simple Structure
Increased owner control – With no departmental
managers to delegate work among the employees, the
single leader retains complete control of the
organization. That's beneficial for owners who prefer
directing the company without having to consult other
managers, which accelerates business growth.
Improved efficiency – With no managers to consult, the
leader makes decisions quickly. Additionally, they need
not involve employees in decision-making unless the
decision affects them directly.
Increased responsibility – Employees in a simple
structure have more responsibilities than in other
organizational models. Each employee affects the
business's direction and success because there are no
managers responsible for each department's success.
Thus, employees are left to manage their time, work
hours, and duties.
Disadvantages of Simple Structure
Increased owner responsibilities – In an organization
with no mid or lower-level managers, the leader is left to
make all the decisions and instruct the employees. That
leaves the Founder to shoulder more responsibility than
any other company employee.
Reduced employee autonomy – While it might be
flexible for employees to react quicker, a simple
structure centralizes power with a single leader. That
prevents employees from expressing ideas and creativity
required in dynamic situations.
Potential confusion – In a flat organization, employees
are likely to be confused when managing complex tasks
because there's no elaborate management structure to
specify each individual's roles and responsibilities.
FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE
✓ A functional structure organizes employees
around specific knowledge or other resources
Hierarchies organized themselves primarily along
functional areas such as Sales, Marketing, or Human
Resources.
In the beginning, they separated into management,
clerical, and production groups.
As organizations grew, they split into more specialized
functions, with all the advantages and disadvantages of
their hierarchy
Evaluating the Functional Structure
- The functional structure creates specialized
pools of talent that typically serve everyone in
the organization. This provides more economies
of scale than are possible if functional specialists
are spread over different parts of the
organization.
- It increases employee identity with the
specialization or profession. Direct supervision is
easier in functional structures because
managers oversee people with common issues
and expertise.
- The functional structure also has limitations.
Grouping employees around their skills tends to
focus attention on those skills and related
professional needs rather than on the
company’s product, service, or client needs.
- Unless people are transferred from one function
to the next, they might not develop a broader
understanding of the business. Compared with
other structures, the functional structure usually
produces higher dysfunctional conflict and
poorer coordination in serving clients or
developing products
- These problems occur because employees need
to work with co-workers in other departments to
complete organizational tasks yet they have
different subgoals and mental models of ideal
work. Together, these problems require
substantial formal controls and coordination
when people are organized around functions.
Advantages of Functional Structure
- Staff and department managers are skilled
because they are experienced in the same field
of business.
- Employees are grouped according to their skills
and expertise. This increases the performance of
the team brings high operational efficiency.
- The roles and responsibilities are well defined.
Each employee has a fixed job definition. This
helps to prevent duplication of work.
- The reporting lines are clearly defined and
employees don’t have to report to multiple
managers. Employees just report to their
functional managers; therefore, they don’t have
to communicate all issues with other managers.
- The career paths are clear, the employees may
be motivated to advance their careers.
- Employees can proceed with confidence and
with a minimum amount of mistakes.
- Since there is a sense of job security, employees
don’t move to another company.
- Communication and cooperation within the
workgroup are strong.
Disadvantages of Functional Structure
- Employees may get bored because they have the
same daily works.
- Since the employees are grouped according to
their knowledge and skills, competition may
arise between them.
- Cooperation and communication between
departments and units may be poor. Lack of
teamwork and reduced flexibility may cause
conflicts between departments and units.
- If an organization gets broader, it could be
difficult to manage and control the work with the
existing structure.
- Departments may concentrate on their own
goals rather than concentrating on the
organizational goals.
 - Because of the strong hierarchy and
bureaucracy, delays may occur in decision-
making.
- Inside a department, employees know all the
things but outside their department, they have
limited knowledge which may cause problems.
- When the employees become experts in their
fields and get more skilled in their departments,
they will cost more. A high skilled employee
means a high cost.
- Adaptation to changes is difficult in a functional
organizational structure because of its rigidity.
- If the functional manager takes decisions
without discussing the issues with his team, the
team may be demoralized
- Many companies are moving away from structures that
DIVISIONAL STRUCTURE
✓ The divisional structure (sometimes called the
multidivisional or M-form structure) groups
employees around geographic areas, outputs
(products or services), or clients.
The geographic divisional structure organizes
employees around distinct regions of the
country or world.
The product/service divisional structure
organizes employees around distinct outputs.
The client divisional structure organizes
employees around specific customer groups.
Which form of divisional structure should large
organizations adopt?
ANS. depends mainly on the primary source of
environmental diversity or uncertainty.
Suppose an organization has one type of product sold to
people across the country. If customer needs vary across
regions, or if state governments impose different
regulations on the product, then a geographic structure
would be best to be more vigilant of this diversity.
if the company sells several types of products across the
country and customer preferences and government
regulations are similar everywhere, then a product
structure would likely work best.
The Globally Integrated Enterprise
An organizational structure in which work processes and
executive functions are distributed around the world
through global centers, rather than developed in a home
country and replicated in satellite countries or regions.
organize people around geographic clusters. (3 reasons)
➢ clients can purchase products online and
communicate with businesses from almost
anywhere in the world, so local representation is
less critical.
➢ Reduced geographic variation is another reason
for the shift away from geographic structures;
freer trade has reduced government
intervention, and consumer preferences for
many products and services are becoming more
similar (converging) around the world.
➢ large companies increasingly have global
business customers who demand one global
point of purchase, not one in every country or
region.
a globally integrated enterprise connects work processes
around the world, rather than replicating them within
each country or region. This type of organization typically
organizes people around product or client divisions. Even
functional units—production, marketing, design, human
resources, and so on—serve the company worldwide
rather than within specific geographic clusters.
These functions are sensitive to cultural and market
differences and have local representation to support
that sensitivity, but local representatives are associates
of a global function rather than a local subsidiary copied
across several regions. Indeed, a globally integrated
enterprise is marked by a dramatic increase in virtual
teamwork, because employees are assigned global
projects and ongoing responsibilities for work units that
transcend geographic boundaries.
Evaluating the Divisional Structure
- The divisional form is a building-block structure;
it accommodates growth relatively easily and
focuses employee attention on products or
customers rather than tasks. Different products,
services, or clients can be accommodated by
sprouting new divisions.
- These advantages are offset by a number of
limitations. First, the divisional structure tends
to duplicate resources, such as production
equipment and engineering or information
technology expertise.
- Also, unless the division is quite large, resources
are not used as efficiently as they are in
functional structures where resources are
pooled across the entire organization. The
divisional structure also creates silos of
knowledge.
- Expertise is spread across several autonomous
business units, and this reduces the ability and
perhaps motivation of the people in one division
to share their knowledge with counterparts in
other divisions. In contrast, a functional
structure groups experts together, thereby
supporting knowledge sharing.
- Finally, the preferred divisional structure
depends on the company’s primary source of
environmental diversity or uncertainty.
TEAM BASED STRUCTURE
✓ An organizational structure built around self-
directed teams that complete an entire piece of
work. (such as manufacturing a product or
developing an electronic game)
✓ This type of structure is usually organic. There is
a wide span of control because teams operate
with minimal supervision.
✓ In extreme situations, there is no formal leader,
just someone selected by other team members
to help coordinate the work and liaise with top
management.
✓ Team structures are highly decentralized
because almost all day-to-day decisions are
made by team members rather than someone
further up the organizational hierarchy.
✓ Finally, many team-based structures have low
formalization because teams are given relatively
few rules about how to organize their work.
Instead, executives assign quality and quantity
output targets and often productivity
improvement goals to each team.
✓ Teams are then encouraged to use available
resources and their own initiative to achieve
those objectives.
✓ Team-based structures are usually found within
the manufacturing or service operations of
larger divisional structures.
Evaluating the Team-based Structure
- The team-based organization represents an
increasingly popular structure because it is
usually more flexible and responsive to the
environment.
- It tends to reduce costs because teams have less
reliance on formal hierarchy (direct supervision).
- A cross-functional team structure improves
communication and cooperation across
traditional boundaries. With greater autonomy,
this structure also allows quicker and more
informed decision making. For this reason, some
hospitals have shifted from functional
departments to cross-functional teams.
- Against these benefits, the team-based structure
can be costly to maintain due to the need for
ongoing interpersonal skill training.
- Teamwork potentially takes more time to
coordinate than formal hierarchy during the
early stages of team development. Employees
may experience more stress due to increased
ambiguity in their roles.
- Team leaders also experience more stress due to
increased conflict, loss of functional power, and
unclear career progression ladders.
- In addition, team structures suffer from
duplication of resources and potential
competition (and lack of resource sharing)
across teams.
MATRIX STRUCTURE
✓ An organizational structure that overlays two
structures (such as a geographic divisional and a
functional structure) in order to leverage the
benefits of both.
Evaluating the Team-based Structure
- The matrix structure usually makes very good
use of resources and expertise, making it ideal
for project-based organizations with fluctuating
workloads.
- When properly managed, it improves
communication efficiency, project flexibility, and
innovation, compared to purely functional or
divisional designs.
- It focuses employees on serving clients or
creating products yet keeps people organized
around their specialization, so knowledge
sharing improves and resources are used more
efficiently.
- The matrix structure is also a logical choice
when, as in the case of Procter & Gamble, two
different dimensions (regions and products) are
equally important.
- Structures determine executive power and what
is important; the matrix structure works when
two different dimensions deserve equal
attention.
- One concern is that it increases conflict among
managers who equally share power. Employees
working at the matrix level have two bosses and,
consequently, two sets of priorities that aren’t
always aligned with each other.
- Project leaders might squabble with functional
leaders regarding the assignment of specific
employees to projects as well as regarding the
employee’s technical competence.
- Another challenge is that the existence of two
bosses can dilute accountability. In a functional
or divisional structure, one manager is
responsible for everything, even the most
unexpected issues. But in a matrix structure, the
unusual problems don’t get resolved because
neither manager takes ownership of them.
- The combination of dysfunctional conflict and
ambiguous accountability in matrix structures
also explains why some employees experience
more stress and some managers are less
satisfied with their work arrangements.
Evaluating the Network Structure
NETWORK STRUCTURE
✓ An alliance of several organizations for the
purpose of creating a product or serving a client.
✓ this collaborative structure typically consists of
several satellite organizations beehive around a
hub or core firm.
✓ The core firm orchestrates the network process
and provides one or two other core
competencies, such as marketing or product
development.
✓ One of the main forces pushing toward a
network structure is the recognition that an
organization has only a few core competencies.
✓ A core competency is a knowledge base that
resides throughout the organization and
provides a strategic advantage.
✓ As companies discover their core competency,
they “unbundle” noncritical tasks to other
organizations that have a core competency at
performing those tasks
✓ Companies are also more likely to form network
structures when technology is changing quickly
and production processes are complex or varied.
- Network structures come close to the organism
metaphor because they offer the flexibility to
realign their structure with changing
environmental requirements. If customers
demand a new product or service, the core firm
forms new alliances with other firms offering the
appropriate resources.
- Network structures also offer efficiencies
because the core firm becomes globally
competitive as it shops worldwide for
subcontractors with the best people and the
best technology at the best price.
- Indeed, the pressures of global competition have
made network structures more vital, and
 computer-based information technology has
made them possible.
- A potential disadvantage of network structures
is that they expose the core firm to market
forces. Other companies may bid up the price for
subcontractors, whereas the short-term cost
would be lower if the company hired its own
employees to perform the same function.
- Another problem is that although information
technology makes worldwide communication
much easier, it will never replace the degree of
control organizations have when manufacturing,
marketing, and other functions are in-house.
- The core firm can use arm’s-length incentives
and contract provisions to maintain the
subcontractor’s quality, but these actions are
relatively crude compared to maintaining the
quality of work performed by in-house
employees.