Flat Organizational Structure Essay

A flat structure is a suitable internal structure for Techno as there are not many levels to the structure. The advantages to this structure are that communications are passed quickly between the levels. This speeds up the process of any decision-making that needs to be made. Many small organisations use this structure.

All organizations have a structure; criminal justice is much as the military in regards to having a chain of command that delegates his/her authority downward from the major command element (Stohr & Collins, 2014). Max Weber defined the characteristics of a bureaucracy as the following: there is a hierarchy of authority that has several levels where each level is controlled by the one above them and includes formal procedures (Stillman, 2010; Stohr & Collins, 2014). Each position is divided with no overlap of duties and the work environment would be impersonal with employment decisions based on the employees technical qualifications (Stillman, 2010; Stohr & Collins, 2014).

Organizational structures have changed greatly in the last fifty years. Whereas most organizations were once rigid and centralized, most organizations are now taking advantage of flexible and decentralized structures. These new structures have affected the standard relationships between employees and managers. Additional layers of management have been created which blur the lines between the functions of managers and the functions of employees. Employees have become decision makers, and some managers barely have any authoritative power. Subsequently, these changes to organizational structures have impacted organizational strategies. This too, expounds upon the increased power of the employee and the reduced authority of the manager. The changes in organizational strategies make use of the dispersion of power in order to reduce costs and enable additional safeguards within these organizations.

It is quite a centralised system with the majority of the decision making taking part at the top of the business. This is definitely seen in the top 3 layers. We can deduct from the diagram that the decision making is passed down the hierarchy with each layer having more people to command and this may mean that information passed from the top may be tampered with or lost easily and this is a disadvantage. Furthermore, it will be very hard for the manager of each department to keep track on everything their employees are doing and this may lead to a fault somewhere in the system. There is a lot of chance for promotion in the lower part of the structure but as you get higher and higher in the ranks it becomes increasingly harder to get promoted due to smaller amount of management this also makes the chain of command very long.

The company has a flat decentralized organizational structure, with less supervision and more independency of managers.

A flat structure – also known as a horizontal organisation – is when the specific retail store has very few or no levels of management. With this structure it means the staff will be highly trained in their day-to-day job and will be more productive because they are

Flat hierarchical: Within my department (Culture & Leisure) there are only a few levels of management (e.g. the Head of Service, the managers and then the members of staff in that manager’s team) therefore there are wide areas of responsibility (e.g. Admin, Sports Development, Marketing, Health & Wellbeing, Ground Maintenance, Parks and all the responsibilities within those teams). This means we have short lines of communication that only stretch to the people within out department.

The pyramid structure firstly is based on a hierarchy where leaders are on the top and workers are on the bottom. On the other hand a flat structure the CEO passes it to one person and that person moves it on to each team member. In this type of structure everyone needs to be highly skilled where with the pyramid structure it would not be necessary. Otherwise a pyramid structure provides oversight and clear direction while the flat structure gives both direction and

The flat organization structure calls for the relatively few layers of management which means the span of control is going to be wide (Flat Organizational Structure). My organization is no different. We have two managers who both mange five programs, which is spread out to about 20 employees each. The advantage with this structure is team spirit and increased interaction with employees but the disadvantage is that it hinders growth within the organization (Flat Organizational Structure).

The vertical hierarchical structure and authoritarianism in bureaucratic organizations is what distorts communication, and reduces accountability, responsiveness and commitment towards core activities (Morris, Farrell, 2007). Instead a flatter hierarchy with decentralized management would be more favourable. It would be cost-efficient as wages would be allocated to fewer levels of management. For example, Call centres in the US adopted flat hierarchies to achieve minimization in costs (Bozionelos, 2008). Subordinates at lower levels of management will be expanded which will motivate staff and provide greater opportunities and sustainability wherein management leads and engages, but does not control and delegate (Dhillon et al. 2015). And consequently,

M2: Analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the interrelationships between organizational functions and its impact that can have upon organizational structure.

Organisation structure defines pattern of how the activities, communication, control and determine how the responsibilities and information follows between the different levels of management, so organisation achieve its goal with right structure. (Pettinger.2007, p421) There is many ways organisation can be structured such as; flat structure is flat and one person at top, everyone else report to tope and gives them equal involvement. Hierarchy structure is the biggest structure with many levels of layers. Hierarchy is used by most large organisation and the levels are one above the other and one person has number of workers under them within their span of control. Tall structure is tall with many level of hierarchy with many management levels. It’s one of the most complicated and complex structure with slower respond. (Bounlesscom, 2014)

Provides a framework for the allocation of responsibilities and authority. It is structure that makes it clear for employees to know who reports to whom and who does what work. In other words, a formal structure helps people to work together.

Organization structure developed from the ancient times of hunters and collectors in tribal organizations through highly royal and clerical power structures to industrial structures and today’s post-industrial structures. According to Lawrence B.Mohr, Taylor, in the early theorists of organizational structure, Taylor, Fayol and Weber saw the importance of structure for effectiveness and efficiency, assumed without the slightest question that whatever structure was needed, people could fashion it. Organizational structure is a matter of choice.

The tall hierarchal structure or the narrow span of control accounted for the senior managers not being aware of what was happening on the ground. The tall hierarchal structure refers to the number of layers of management in the relaying of information before that information reaches the head, in this case Jung. Avon previously had a structure of fifteen layers.