3: Org and Business Structures Flashcards
What are the 4 levels of management?
Top management
Middle management
First line management
Direct operational staff
What are the six blocks of Mintzberg’s building blocks?
From top down:
Ideology
Strategic apex
Middle line
Operating core
Sides:
Technostructure
Support staff
What are the coordinating mechanisms for Mintzberg?
Direct supervision
Standardisation
Mutual adjustment
Principles of organisation structure?
Division of work
Scalar chain
Correspondence of authority and responsibility
Centralisation
Unity of command
Unity of direction
Multiskilling
Flexibility
Ways of communicating organisational structure?
Charts
Manuals
JDs
What are the 5 kind of Mintzberg structure?
- Entrepreneurial structure
- Functional structure
- Divisional structure
- Matrix structure
Also professional bureaucracy?
Describe an entrepreneurial structure
Built around an owner-managed
Totally centralised, all key decisions being made by a strategic leader
Plus:
- fast decision making
- more responsive to market
- good control
- close bond to workforce
Negative
- lack of career structure
- too centralised
- cant cope with diversification/growth
Describe functional structure
Outgrown entrepreneurial structure
Functional basis
Board of directions > managers of departments
Small companies with few products and locations, in a stable enviro
Plus:
- economies of scale
- standardisation
- specialists more comfortable
Negative:
- empire building
- slow to adapt
- conflict between functions
- cannot cope with diversification
Describe a divisional strcture
In accordance with product/lines or geographical locations
Board of directors > divisions, ie. Chemical, plastics
Own managers looking after own resources. Large scale productions
Plus:
- enables product growth
- clear responsibility
- training of general managers
Negative:
- loss of control
- lack of goal congruence
- duplication
- specialists may feel isolated
Describe matrix structure
Has benefits of divisional and functional structure
Found in multi product and multi functional orgs
Plus:
- flexibility
- advantages of both structures
Negatives:
- dual command
- dilution of functional authority
- time consuming meetings
What are the pros of decentralisation?
Senior management can concentrate on strategy
Better local decisions due to local expertise
Better motivation
Quicker responses/flexibility
Training/career path
What are the cons of decentralisation?
Loss of control by senior management
Dysfunctional decisions due to a lack of goal congruence
Poor decisions made by inexperienced manager
Extra costs re: information
What are the characteristics of a tall structure?
Many managerial levels
Narrow span of control
More promotional oppurtunities
Smoother progression from one level to another
Inhibits delegation
More expensive
What are the characteristics of a flat structure?
Fewer managerial levels
Wide span of control
Quicker decision making
Lower management costs
More delegation
People may be overworked
Burns and Stalker two extremes of structure:
Mechanistic
- rigid and formalised
- focuses on efficiency
- power based on authority
Organic
- fluid and flexible
- informal
- power based on expertise
Advantages and disadvantages of sole traders?
Plus:
Keep all profits
Little regulation
Negative:
unlimited liability
continuity concerns
Advantages and disadvantages of a partnership?
Plus:
- combined skills
- little regulation
Negatives:
- unlimited liability
- potential disagreements
Advantages and disadvantages to limited companies?
Plus:
- limited liability
- ownership transferred by selling shares
Negatives:
- regulation
- financial statements open to scrutiny
What are the 4 kind of alliances?
Joint ventures
- a separate joint owned-company
Licensing/franchising
- one company manufactures/markets that of another
Strategic alliance
- ‘loose’ collaboration (like airways)
Agency agreements
- one party distributes another
What is a business group?
A number of companies under common control
Parent company
Owns sufficient number of shares to exercise control
Over the subsidiary
What does an organisational chart include?
The span of control
The scalar chain
What is a professional bureaucracy?
Simple systems about the standardisation of skills
All training schools, etc, where a profession is taught
Another word for function structure?
Machine bureaucracy
The technostructure exerts a pull towards a standardisation process
Another word for matrix structure?
Adhocracy/innovative
Any company with both senior managers and project managers will have this
The key building block of divisional structures?
The middle line
What does a technostructure do?
Standardises work processes
What do wide flat organisations exhibit?
Greater need to delegate
Better communication
Large spans of control
Can afford less tight control of the team
What do limited companies always have?
Perpetual succession
Separate legal personality
Regulated under CA2006
Unlimited company’s liability
Advantages of centralisation?
Greater levels of functional coordination
Greater potential for cost savings
