Mintzberg’s

organisation theory
http://www.mintzberg.org/
Henry Mintzberg
• Situational theorist
• How different environmental factors influence organizational
forms and organizational problems
• “Structure in 5’s: Designing Effective Organisations” (1983)
• Mintzberg’s:
 5 basic organizational elements
 5 basic organizational forms
 5 coordinating mechanisms
7 central driving forces for organizations
Direction
Effectivity

1. Direction
2. Effectivity Ideology
(integration)
3. Skills
4. Concentration Competition
(differentiation)
5. Adaptability (Innovation) Concentration
Skills
6. Ideology
7. Competition

Adaptability
Parameters for organizational design
Internal External
• Age • Stability
• Size • Complexity
Situation variables • Technology • Heteroginity
• Power distribution • Hostility

Level of difficulty
Job variables
Predictability
Variation
Responsiveness
Design parameters
Centralizing/decentralizing
Specializing
Organizational Forms Coordination
5 basic organisational elements
5 basic organisational elements

1. The Strategic Apex: Top‑level managers, who are charged

with the overall responsibility for the organization.

2. The Operating Core: Employees who perform the basic

work related to the production of products and services.
 
3. The Middle Line: Managers, who connect the operating
core to the strategic apex.
 
4. The Technostructure: Analysts, who have the responsibility
for standardization in the organization.
 
5. The Support Staff: People who fill the staff units, who
provide indirect services for the organization.
5 basic organisation forms

Ideal forms – do not exist as pure forms in reality

1. The simple structure

2. Machine bureaucracy
3. Professional bureaucracy
4. Adhocracy
5. Divisionalized form
The simple structure

• The manager is in charge

• Often small companies like craftsmen or start-ups

• Organic structure, flexible and easily adaptable

A gallery
Jack’s auto repair shop
• Direct supervision

• Low standardisation and bureaucracy

• Operates best in simple and dynamic environment

Machine bureaucracy
• Typical for service and industrial companies

• Mechanic structure in a simple and stable

environment

• Centralised decisions Mass production – McDonalds,

production companies etc.

• High standardisation and specialisation

• Coordination through rules, policies, regulations

• Effective in production, low degree of flexibility

Professional bureaucracy

• Mechanic and organic structure in a stable

and complex environment

• Typical for knowledge-based companies

Hospitals, universities
• Decentralised decisions Old-fashioned banks

• Coordination through standardisation of skills

• Operating core controls their own work – “a lot like

herding cats”
 Adhocracy
• The tech and support are melted together

• Top and middle management can sometimes

melt together

• Typical for research, creativity, focus on flexibility,

Consultancies,
innovation large design companies
IT, biotechnology
• Coordination through mutual adjustment in a complex
and dynamic environment

• Very organic structure, decentralised decisions –

unclear accountability, big fluctuations in work load
 The divisionalized form
• Several independent divisions (profit centres),
each division could be a machine bureaucracy

• Specialisation, e.g. geographical division Concern with daughter companies

• Common management that has most of power

• Coordination through standardisation of results

• The bigger is the company, the more formalised it gets

• Operates best in private sector

 Simple structure:
certain strategy
Direction
Effectivity and vision
Machine
bureaucracy: focus
on optimisation of
processes seen as Ability to
value chains Ideology cooperate on same
(integration) values and beliefs

Is organisation
affected by Divisionalized
Competition
personal interests Concentration form: how easy can
(differentiation)
Skills and power fights organisation
concentrate efforts
around focus area
Prof. bureaucracy:
can organisation
fulfil tasks that Adhocracy: how
require high prof. easy can
knowledge Adaptability organisation adapt
to changes in
environment
 5 coordinating mechanisms

1. Mutual adjustment
2. Direct supervision
3. Standardization of work processes
4. Standardization of skills and knowledge
5. Standardization of outputs
Coordinating mechanisms vs environment

p. 194 in your book

Coordination, structure and environment
p. 195 in your book
 Exercise – Organisational design
Explain how to design the organization in the following 5 situations based on Mintzberg's model. Draw an
organizational model for each of the cases and justify your choices.

1. You are employed by a small craft company where the work is done by a person or by a very small team.

2. You work in a part of the company that deals with the solution of unique individual tasks. The assignments are of
such type that experience from previous tasks can only be transferred to the new task to a limited extent.

3. You are the departmental manager of a furniture factory where the work processes are severely separated. In your
department, the task is to cut a number of particle board in different sizes and combinations so that customers can
collect them for various furniture. Production is highly automated and takes place on an assembly line.

4. You have a small audit office with 2 office assistants employed. The assistants have no accounting qualifications, in
addition to the instructions you give them.

5. You are the head of a department where your employees have MSc, MA and PhD degrees. A large part of them are
better educated than you and are at the research level.