INFLUENCES ON ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE Flashcards
What are corporate objectives
Corporate objectives - You have to have an organisation which is designed in a way that it’s going to allow you to hit your corporate objectives, maybe that’s cost minimisation as you’re in the survival stage of the business. Or maybe you’re being innovative in the company etc.
What is “the nature of the product”
The nature of the product - If you’re mass producing low cost goods (fast food for example) consistency is required etc - you may go for quite a centralised tall hierarchy where everything can be monitored . Or you could be going to a really high quality product (luxury sports cars for example) bespoke design etc, in that case you’d probably use a different approach, like a flatter hierarchy where you trust your staff to get on with things instead of babysitting them through the process
What is “managment attitudes to staff”
Management attitudes to staff - Theory X vs Theory Y - In theory X the workers are presumed to only be motivated by money, can’t really be trusted, thought to not want responsibility. Or Theory Y being thinking that workers aren’t only motivated by money, that they will do a good job, and therefore its the company’s responsibility to leave them alone etc
What is “skill and experience of staff”
Skill and experience of staff - If you’ve got a lot of young part time staff (temporary workers, workers with other responsibilities, holiday workers etc) in that type of an organisation would probably want to centralise it’s decision making, as the staff don’t really have the expertise to make decisions alone. Or the other way round where staff are full time, mature, have experience in the industry, so the staff would probably be trusted to make decisions alone, so a decentralised approach
What is “business size and ownership”
Business size and ownership - Small family run businesses are likely to have a very different structure to a PLC
What is “attitude to risk and innovation”
Attitude to risk and innovation - If you’re really risk averse, the company wouldn’t want people taking chances, you’d want to monitor what’s going on, have a centralised tall structure. Whereas if you were happy to have a little bit of risk, innovation etc then you’d probably use a decentralised flatter approach
