Internal Organisational structures Flashcards
Why is it important that a firm has a clear internal organisational structure?
Makes it easy for everybody in the business to know who is responsible for what, and helps the company to make sure that it has people in every job role to deal with each of its activities.
What are the 4 basic layers of staff within hierarchy?
Directors, Managers, Supervisors and Operatives.
What do Directors do?
Directors are responsible for the business’ strategy.
What do Managers do?
Managers organise the carrying out of the directors’ strategy.
What do Supervisors do?
Supervisors usually look after specific projects or small teams of operatives
What do operatives do?
Operatives are workers who aren’t responsible for other staff. They’re often given specific tasks to perform by managers or supervisors.
What is The Span of Control?
The number of workers who report to one manager in a hierarchy.
What is a Tall Organisational Structure?
There is a long chain of command with more layers of management.
Only has a narrow span of control, this can make a firm more effective as managers can monitor the employees they are responsible for more closely.
What is a Flat Organisational Structure?
There is a short chain of command.
Each manager has a wide span of control, this means that each manager has to manage a lot of employees at once - can be difficult to manage a lot of employees effectively.
How can a Tall Organisational structure affect communication?
Communication up and down the hierarchy can be difficult and slow as more people need to pass on the message.
It can also be hard to use verbal communication if lots of managers need to be involved in a conversation.
How can a Flat Organisational Structure affect communication?
Communication up and down can be much faster because there are fewer layers of management.
Verbal communication can still be tricky if a manager’s span of control is very wide and they need to talk to each of their workers individually.
What are Centralised Organisations?
All majors decisions are made by one person or a few senior managers at the top of the hierarchy
What are Decentralised Organisations?
The authority to make most of the decisions is shared out.
What are Advantages of a Centralised Organisation?
The senior managers tend to have plenty of experience and can get an overview of the whole business. Policies will be uniform throughout the business.
What are Disadvantages of a Centralised Organisation?
If all decisions need to be made by two or more people, it can slow down decision making and communication of decisions can take a long time to filter through to employees. This means that the organisation reacts slowly to change.
