7 Designing Organizational Structures

Division of Labor

The process of dividing work into separate jobs and assigning tasks to workers is called division of labor. In a fast-food restaurant, for example, some employees take or fill orders, others prepare food, a few clean and maintain equipment, and at least one supervises all the others. In an auto assembly plant, some workers install rearview mirrors, while others mount bumpers on bumper brackets. The degree to which the tasks are subdivided into smaller jobs is called specialization. Employees who work at highly specialized jobs, such as assembly-line workers, perform a limited number and variety of tasks. Employees who become specialists at one task, or a small number of tasks, develop greater skill in doing that particular job. This can lead to greater efficiency and consistency in production and other work activities. However, a high degree of specialization can also result in employees who are disinterested or bored due to the lack of variety and challenge.

Traditional Structures

After a company divides the work it needs to do into specific jobs, managers then group the jobs together so that similar or associated tasks and activities can be coordinated. This grouping of people, tasks, and resources into organizational units is called departmentalization. It facilitates the planning, leading, and control processes.

An organization chart is a visual representation of the structured relationships among tasks and the people given the authority to do those tasks. In the organization chart in Exhibit 7.4, each figure represents a job, and each job includes several tasks. The sales manager, for instance, must hire salespeople, establish sales territories, motivate and train the salespeople, and control sales operations. The chart also indicates the general type of work done in each position. As Exhibit 7.5 shows, five basic types of departmentalization are commonly used in organizations:

1. Functional departmentalization, which is based on the primary functions performed within an organizational unit (marketing, finance, production, sales, and so on). Ethan Allen Interiors, a vertically integrated home furnishings manufacturer, continues its successful departmentalization by function, including retail, manufacturing and sourcing, product design, logistics, and operations, which includes tight financial controls.¹

2. Product departmentalization, which is based on the goods or services produced or sold by the organizational unit (such as outpatient/emergency services, pediatrics, cardiology, and orthopedics). For example, ITT is a diversified leading manufacturer of highly engineered components and customized technology solutions for the transportation, industrial, and oil and gas markets. The company is organized into four product divisions: Industrial Process (pumps, valves, and wastewater treatment equipment), Control Technologies (motion control and vibration isolation products), Motion Technologies (shock absorbers, brake pads, and friction materials), and Interconnect Solutions (connectors for a variety of markets).²
3. Process departmentalization, which is based on the production process used by the organizational unit (such as lumber cutting and treatment, furniture finishing, and shipping). For example, the organization of Gazprom Neft, a Russian oil company, reflects the activities the company needs to perform to extract oil from the ground and turn it into a final product: exploration and research, production (drilling), refining, and marketing and distribution.³ Pixar, the animated-movie company now part of Disney, is divided into three parallel yet interactive process-based groups: technology development, which delivers computer-graphics tools; creative development, which creates stories and characters and animates them; and production, which coordinates the film-making process.⁴
4. Customer departmentalization, which is based on the primary type of customer served by the organizational unit (such as wholesale or retail purchasers). The PNC Financial Services Group offers a wide range of services for all of its customers and is structured by the type of consumer it serves: retail banking for consumers; the asset management group, with specific focus on individuals as well as corporations, unions, municipalities, and others; and corporate and institutional banking for middle-market companies nationwide.⁵

5. Geographic departmentalization, which is based on the geographic segmentation of organizational units (such as U.S. and Canadian marketing, European marketing, and Latin American marketing).

People are assigned to a particular organizational unit because they perform similar or related tasks, or because they are jointly responsible for a product, client, or market. Decisions about how to departmentalize affect the way management assigns authority, distributes resources, rewards performance, and sets up lines of communication. Many large organizations use several types of departmentalization. For example, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the multibillion-dollar consumer-products company, integrates four different types of departmentalization, which the company refers to as “four pillars.” First, the Global Business Units (GBU) divide the company according to products (baby, feminine, and family care; beauty; fabric and home care; and health and grooming). Then, P&G uses a geographical approach, creating business units to market its products around the world. There are Selling and Market Operations (SMO) groups for North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Greater China, India, the Middle East, and Africa. P&G’s third pillar is Global Business Services division (GBS), which also uses geographic departmentalization. GBS provides technology processes and standard data tools to enable the GBUs and SMOs to better understand the business and to serve consumers and customers better. It supports P&G business units in areas such as accounting and financial reporting, information technology, purchases, payroll and benefits administration, and facilities management. Finally, the divisions of the Corporate Functions pillar provide a safety net to all the other pillars. These divisions are comprised of functional specialties such as customer business development; external relations; human resources; legal, marketing, consumer, and market knowledge; research and development; and workplace services.⁶

Line-and-Staff Organization

The line organization is designed with direct, clear lines of authority and communication flowing from the top managers downward. Managers have direct control over all activities, including administrative duties. An organization chart for this type of structure would show that all positions in the firm are directly connected via an imaginary line extending from the highest position in the organization to the lowest (where production of goods and services takes place). This structure, with its simple design and broad managerial control, is often well-suited to small, entrepreneurial firms.

As an organization grows and becomes more complex, the line organization can be enhanced by adding staff positions to the design. Staff positions provide specialized advisory and support services to line managers in the line-and-staff organization, shown in Exhibit 7.6. In daily operations, individuals in line positions are directly involved in the processes used to create goods and services. Individuals in staff positions provide the administrative and support services that line employees need to achieve the firm’s goals. Line positions in organizations are typically in areas such as production, marketing, and finance. Staff positions are found in areas such as legal counseling, managerial consulting, public relations, and human resource management.

Concept Check

1. How does specialization lead to greater efficiency and consistency in production?
2. What are the five types of departmentalization?

Matrix Structure

The matrix structure (also called the project management approach) is sometimes used in conjunction with the traditional line-and-staff structure in an organization. Essentially, this structure combines two different forms of departmentalization, functional and product, that have complementary strengths and weaknesses. The matrix structure brings together people from different functional areas of the organization (such as manufacturing, finance, and marketing) to work on a special project. Each employee has two direct supervisors: the line manager from her or his specific functional area and the project manager. Exhibit 7.7 shows a matrix organization with four special project groups (A, B, C, D), each with its own project manager. Because of the dual chain of command, the matrix structure presents some unique challenges for both managers and subordinates.

Advantages of the matrix structure include:

• Teamwork. By pooling the skills and abilities of various specialists, the company can increase creativity and innovation and tackle more complex tasks.
• Efficient use of resources. Project managers use only the specialized staff they need to get the job done, instead of building large groups of underused personnel.
• Flexibility. The project structure is flexible and can adapt quickly to changes in the environment; the group can be disbanded quickly when it is no longer needed.
• Ability to balance conflicting objectives. The customer wants a quality product and predictable costs. The organization wants high profits and the development of technical capability for the future. These competing goals serve as a focal point for directing activities and overcoming conflict. The marketing representative can represent the customer, the finance representative can advocate high profits, and the engineers can push for technical capabilities.
• Higher performance. Employees working on special project teams may experience increased feelings of ownership, commitment, and motivation.
• Opportunities for personal and professional development. The project structure gives individuals the opportunity to develop and strengthen technical and interpersonal skills.

Disadvantages of the matrix structure include:

• Power struggles. Functional and product managers may have different goals and management styles.
• Confusion among team members. Reporting relationships and job responsibilities may be unclear.
• Lack of cohesiveness. Team members from different functional areas may have difficulty communicating effectively and working together as a team.

Although project-based matrix organizations can improve a company’s flexibility and teamwork, some companies are trying to unravel complex matrix structures that create limited accountability and complicate day-to-day operations. Some CEOs and other top managers suggest that matrix structures make it easier to blame others when things don’t go as planned.⁷

Committee Structure

In committee structure, authority and responsibility are held by a group rather than an individual. Committees are typically part of a larger line-and-staff organization. Often the committee’s role is only advisory, but in some situations the committee has the power to make and implement decisions. Committees can make the coordination of tasks in the organization much easier. For example, Novartis, the huge Swiss pharmaceutical company, has a committee structure, which reports to its board of directors. The company’s executive committee is responsible for overseeing the business operations of group companies within the global organization and consists of the CEO, CFO, head of HR, general counsel, president of operations, head of biomedical research, global head of drug development, CEOs of the pharmaceutical and oncology units, and CEOs of Sandoz and Alcon, other Novartis companies. Members of the executive committee are selected by the company’s board of directors.⁸

Committees bring diverse viewpoints to a problem and expand the range of possible solutions, but there are some drawbacks. Committees can be slow to reach a decision and are sometimes dominated by a single individual. It is also more difficult to hold any one individual accountable for a decision made by a group. Committee meetings can sometimes go on for long periods of time with seemingly little being accomplished.

Understanding Group Behavior

Teams are a specific type of organizational group. Every organization contains groups, social units of two or more people who share the same goals and cooperate to achieve those goals. Understanding some fundamental concepts related to group behavior and group processes provides a good foundation for understanding concepts about work teams. Groups can be formal or informal in nature. Formal groups are designated and sanctioned by the organization; their behavior is directed toward accomplishing organizational goals. Informal groups are based on social relationships and are not determined or sanctioned by the organization.

Formal organizational groups, like the sales department at Apple, must operate within the larger Apple organizational system. To some degree, elements of the larger Apple system, such as organizational strategy, company policies and procedures, available resources, and the highly motivated employee corporate culture, determine the behavior of smaller groups, such as the sales department, within the company. Other factors that affect the behavior of organizational groups are individual member characteristics (e.g., ability, training, personality), the roles and norms of group members, and the size and cohesiveness of the group. Norms are the implicit behavioral guidelines of the group, or the standards for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. For example, an Apple sales manager may be expected to work at least two Saturdays per month without extra pay. Although this isn’t written anywhere, it is the expected norm.

Group cohesiveness refers to the degree to which group members want to stay in the group and tend to resist outside influences (such as a change in company policies). When group performance norms are high, group cohesiveness will have a positive impact on productivity. Cohesiveness tends to increase when the size of the group is small, individual and group goals are similar, the group has high status in the organization, rewards are group-based rather than individual-based, and the group competes with other groups within the organization. Work group cohesiveness can benefit the organization in several ways, including increased productivity, enhanced worker self-image because of group success, increased company loyalty, reduced employee turnover, and reduced absenteeism. Southwest Airlines is known for its work group cohesiveness. On the other hand, cohesiveness can also lead to restricted output, resistance to change, and conflict with other work groups in the organization.

The opportunity to turn the decision-making process over to a group with diverse skills and abilities is one of the arguments for using work groups (and teams) in organizational settings. For group decision-making to be most effective, however, both managers and group members must understand its strengths and weaknesses (see Table 7.1).

Work Groups versus Work Teams

We have already noted that teams are a special type of organizational group, but we also need to differentiate between work groups and work teams. Work groups share resources and coordinate efforts to help members better perform their individual duties and responsibilities. The performance of the group can be evaluated by adding up the contributions of the individual group members. Work teams require not only coordination but also collaboration, the pooling of knowledge, skills, abilities, and resources in a collective effort to attain a common goal. A work team creates synergy, causing the performance of the team as a whole to be greater than the sum of team members’ individual contributions. Simply assigning employees to groups and labeling them a team does not guarantee a positive outcome. Managers and team members must be committed to creating, developing, and maintaining high-performance work teams. Factors that contribute to their success are discussed later in this section.

Types of Teams

The evolution of the team concept in organizations can be seen in three basic types of work teams: problem-solving, self-managed, and cross-functional. Problem-solving teams are typically made up of employees from the same department or area of expertise and from the same level of the organizational hierarchy. They meet on a regular basis to share information and discuss ways to improve processes and procedures in specific functional areas. Problem-solving teams generate ideas and alternatives and may recommend a specific course of action, but they typically do not make final decisions, allocate resources, or implement change.

Many organizations that experienced success using problem-solving teams were willing to expand the team concept to allow team members greater responsibility in making decisions, implementing solutions, and monitoring outcomes. These highly autonomous groups are called self-managed work teams. They manage themselves without any formal supervision, taking responsibility for setting goals, planning and scheduling work activities, selecting team members, and evaluating team performance.

Today, approximately 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies use some sort of self-managed teams.⁹ One example is Zappos’s shift to self-managed work teams in 2013, where the traditional organizational structure and bosses were eliminated, according to a system called holacracy.¹⁰ Another version of self-managing teams can be found at W. L. Gore, the company that invented Gore-Tex fabric and Glide dental floss. The three employees who invented Elixir guitar strings contributed their spare time to the effort and persuaded a handful of colleagues to help them improve the design. After working three years entirely on their own—without asking for any supervisory or top management permission or being subjected to any kind of oversight—the team finally sought the support of the larger company, which they needed to take the strings to market. Today, W. L. Gore’s Elixir is the number one selling string brand for acoustic guitar players.¹¹

An adaptation of the team concept is called a cross-functional team. These teams are made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different functional areas of the organization. Many task forces, organizational committees, and project teams are cross-functional. Often the team members work together only until they solve a given problem or complete a specific project. Cross-functional teams allow people with various levels and areas of expertise to pool their resources, develop new ideas, solve problems, and coordinate complex projects. Both problem-solving teams and self-managed teams may also be cross-functional teams.

Building High-Performance Teams

A great team must possess certain characteristics, so selecting the appropriate employees for the team is vital. Employees who are more willing to work together to accomplish a common goal should be selected, rather than employees who are more interested in their own personal achievement. Team members should also possess a variety of skills. Diverse skills strengthen the overall effectiveness of the team, so teams should consciously recruit members to fill gaps in the collective skill set. To be effective, teams must also have clearly defined goals. Vague or unclear goals will not provide the necessary direction or allow employees to measure their performance against expectations.

Next, high-performing teams need to practice good communication. Team members need to communicate messages and give appropriate feedback that seeks to correct any misunderstandings. Feedback should also be detached; that is, team members should be careful to critique ideas rather than criticize the person who suggests them. Nothing can degrade the effectiveness of a team like personal attacks. Lastly, great teams have great leaders. Skilled team leaders divide work so that tasks are not repeated, help members set and track goals, monitor their team’s performance, communicate openly, and remain flexible to adapt to changing goals or management demands.

Managerial Hierarchy

Managerial hierarchy (also called the management pyramid) is defined by the levels of management within an organization. Generally, the management structure has three levels: top, middle, and supervisory management. In a managerial hierarchy, each organizational unit is controlled and supervised by a manager in a higher unit. The person with the most formal authority is at the top of the hierarchy. The higher a manager, the more power they have. Thus, the amount of power decreases as you move down the management pyramid. At the same time, the number of employees increases as you move down the hierarchy.

Not all companies today are using this traditional configuration. One company that has eliminated hierarchy altogether is the Morning Star Company, the largest tomato processor in the world. Based in Woodland, California, the company employs 600 permanent “colleagues” and an additional 4,000 workers during harvest season. Founder and sole owner Chris Rufer started the company and based its vision on the philosophy of self-management, in which professionals initiate communication and coordination of their activities with colleagues, customers, suppliers, and others and take personal responsibility for helping the company achieve its corporate goals.¹²

An organization with a well-defined hierarchy has a clear chain of command, which is the line of authority that extends from one level of the organization to the next, from top to bottom, and makes clear who reports to whom. The chain of command is shown in the organization chart and can be traced from the CEO all the way down to the employees producing goods and services. Under the unity of command principle, everyone reports to and gets instructions from only one boss. Unity of command guarantees that everyone will have a direct supervisor and will not be taking orders from a number of different supervisors. Unity of command and chain of command give everyone in the organization clear directions and help coordinate people doing different jobs.

Matrix organizations automatically violate the unity of command principle because employees report to more than one boss, if only for the duration of a project. For example, Unilever, the consumer-products company that makes Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, used to have a matrix structure with one CEO for North America and another for Europe. But employees in divisions that operated in both locations were unsure about which CEO’s decisions took precedence. Today, the company uses a product departmentalization structure.¹³ Companies like Unilever tend to abandon matrix structures because of problems associated with unclear or duplicate reporting relationships—in other words, with a lack of unity of command.

Individuals who are part of the chain of command have authority over other persons in the organization. Authority is legitimate power, granted by the organization and acknowledged by employees, that allows an individual to request action and expect compliance. Exercising authority means making decisions and seeing that they are carried out. Most managers delegate, or assign, some degree of authority and responsibility to others below them in the chain of command. The delegation of authority makes the employees accountable to their supervisor. Accountability means responsibility for outcomes. Typically, authority and responsibility move downward through the organization as managers assign activities to, and share decision-making with, their subordinates. Accountability moves upward in the organization as managers in each successively higher level are held accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

Span of Control

Each firm must decide how many managers are needed at each level of the management hierarchy to effectively supervise the work performed within organizational units. A manager’s span of control (sometimes called span of management) is the number of employees the manager directly supervises. It can be as narrow as two or three employees or as wide as 50 or more. In general, the larger the span of control, the more efficient the organization. As Table 7.2 shows, however, both narrow and wide spans of control have benefits and drawbacks.

If hundreds of employees perform the same job, one supervisor may be able to manage a very large number of employees. Such might be the case at a clothing plant, where hundreds of sewing machine operators work from identical patterns. But if employees perform complex and dissimilar tasks, a manager can effectively supervise only a much smaller number. For instance, a supervisor in the research and development area of a pharmaceutical company might oversee just a few research chemists due to the highly complex nature of their jobs.

Mechanistic versus Organic Structures

Structural design generally follows one of the two basic models described in Table 7.3: mechanistic or organic. A mechanistic organization is characterized by a relatively high degree of job specialization, rigid departmentalization, many layers of management (particularly middle management), narrow spans of control, centralized decision-making, and a long chain of command. This combination of elements results in what is called a tall organizational structure. The U.S. Army and the United Nations are typical mechanistic organizations.

In contrast, an organic organization is characterized by a relatively low degree of job specialization, loose departmentalization, few levels of management, wide spans of control, decentralized decision-making, and a short chain of command. This combination of elements results in what is called a flat organizational structure. Colleges and universities tend to have flat organizational structures, with only two or three levels of administration between the faculty and the president. Exhibit 7.9 shows examples of flat and tall organizational structures.

Factors Influencing the Choice between Mechanistic and Organic Structures

Although few organizations are purely mechanistic or purely organic, most organizations tend more toward one type or the other. The decision to create a more mechanistic or a more organic structural design is based on factors such as the firm’s overall strategy, the size of the organization, and the stability of its external environment, among others.

A company’s organizational structure should enable it to achieve its goals, and because setting corporate goals is part of a firm’s overall strategy-making process, it follows that a company’s structure depends on its strategy. That alignment can be challenging for struggling companies trying to accomplish multiple goals. For example, a company with an innovation strategy will need the flexibility and fluid movement of information that an organic organization provides. But a company using a cost-control strategy will require the efficiency and tight control of a mechanistic organization. Often, struggling companies try to simultaneously increase innovation and rein in costs, which can be organizational challenges for managers. Such is the case at Microsoft, where CEO Satya Nadella cut more than 18,000 jobs in 2014 after taking the helm at the technology giant. Most of the cuts were the result of the company’s failed acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business. More recently, the company eliminated additional jobs in sales and marketing (mostly overseas) as Microsoft shifts from a software developer to a cloud computing software delivery service. At the same time, Nadella is also trying to encourage employees and managers to break down barriers between divisions and increase the pace of innovation across the organization.¹⁴

Size is another factor that affects how mechanistic or organic a company’s organizational structure is. Much research has been conducted that shows a company’s size has a significant impact on its organizational structure. Smaller companies tend to follow the more organic model, in part because they can. It’s much easier to be successful with decentralized decision-making, for example, if you have only 50 employees. A company with that few employees is also more likely, by virtue of its size, to have a lesser degree of employee specialization. That’s because, when there are fewer people to do the work, those people tend to know more about the entire process. As a company grows, it becomes more mechanistic, as systems are put in place to manage the greater number of employees. Procedures, rules, and regulations replace flexibility, innovation, and independence. That isn’t always the case, however. W. L. Gore has nearly 10,000 employees and more than $3 billion in annual revenues but, as noted earlier, uses an extremely organic organizational structure. Employees have no bosses, participate on teams, and often create roles for themselves to fill functional gaps within the company.¹⁵

Lastly, the business in which a company operates has a significant impact on its organizational structure. In complex, dynamic, and unstable environments, companies need to organize for flexibility and agility. That is, their organizational structures need to respond to rapid and unexpected changes in the business environment. For companies operating in stable environments, however, the demands for flexibility and agility are not so great. The environment is predictable. In a simple, stable environment, therefore, companies benefit from the efficiencies created by a mechanistic organizational structure.

Functions of the Informal Organization

The informal organization has several important functions. First, it provides a source of friendships and social contact for organization members. Second, the interpersonal relationships and informal groups help employees feel better-informed about and connected with what is going on in their firm, thus giving them some sense of control over their work environment. Third, the informal organization can provide status and recognition that the formal organization cannot or will not provide employees. Fourth, the network of relationships can aid the socialization of new employees by informally passing along rules, responsibilities, basic objectives, and job expectations. Finally, the organizational grapevine helps employees to be more aware of what is happening in their workplace by transmitting information quickly and conveying it to places that the formal system does not reach.

Informal Communication Channels

The informal channels of communication used by the informal organization are often referred to as the grapevine or the rumor mill. Managers need to pay attention to the grapevines in their organization, because their employees increasingly put a great deal of stock in the information that travels along it, especially in this era of social media. A recent survey found that many business leaders have their work cut out for them in the speeches and presentations they give employees. Survey participants were asked if they would believe a message delivered in a speech by a company leader or one that they heard over the grapevine. Forty-seven percent of those responding said they would put more credibility in the grapevine. Only 42 percent said they would believe senior leadership, and another 11 percent indicated they would believe a blend of elements from both messages. Perhaps even more interesting is how accurate employees perceive their company grapevine to be: 57 percent gave it favorable ratings. “The grapevine may not be wholly accurate, but it is a very reliable indicator that something is going on,” said one survey respondent.¹⁶

With this in mind, managers need to learn to use the existing informal organization as a tool that can potentially benefit the formal organization. An excellent way of putting the informal organization to work for the good of the company is to bring informal leaders into the decision-making process. That way, at least the people who use and nurture the grapevine will have more accurate information to send it. 

 

Concept Check

1. What is the informal organization?
2. How can informal channels of communication be used to improve operational efficiency?

To improve organizational performance and achieve long-term objectives, some organizations seek to reengineer their business processes or adopt new technologies that open up a variety of organizational design options, such as virtual corporations and virtual teams. Other trends that have strong footholds in today’s organizations include outsourcing and managing global businesses.

Virtual Teams

Technology is also enabling corporations to create virtual work teams. Geography is no longer a limitation when employees are considered for a work team. Virtual teams mean reduced travel time and costs, reduced relocation expenses, and utilization of specialized talent regardless of an employee’s location.

When managers need to staff a project, all they need to do is make a list of required skills and a general list of employees who possess those skills. When the pool of employees is known, the manager simply chooses the best mix of people and creates the virtual team. Special challenges of virtual teams include keeping team members focused, motivated, and communicating positively despite their locations. If feasible, at least one face-to-face meeting during the early stages of team formation will help with these potential problems.