How do flat organizations differ from traditional bureaucratic hierarchies?How has information technology made it possible to eliminate middle manager positions? What management, organization, and technology issues would you consider if you wanted to move from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization?Can technology replace managers? Explain your answer. 120 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked EnterpriseINTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENTCan Technology Replace Managers?Start-up companies are known for being innovative,and one of those innovations appears to be the waythey are being managed. A number of these newfirms are trying to minimize headcount and maxi-mize agility by eliminating management hierarchy.In place of managers, they're turning to technol-ogy, including user-friendly software and low-costchain of command, holocracy organizes the busi-ness as a series of overlapping, self-governing"circles." Instead of having jobs, holocracies have"roles." Each role belongs to a circle rather thana department. The circles overlap, and individu-hold many different roles. Individuals assignedroles in these circles work together, and their meet-ing outcomes are recorded using web-based soft-ware called Glass Frog. This system allows anyoneweb-based services such as Amazon.com's Redshiftfor storing corporate data, analyzing the data, andpresenting the results in the form of dashboardsthat anyone in the firm can use. In the past suchdata were difficult to obtain, required more seniormanagers to organize and interpret, or could not beanalyzed without expensive business intelligencesystems costing millions of dollars. Today even smallstart-ups can afford to store and manipulate nearlylimitless pools of data in near real time.For example, Chubbies, a rapidly growing clothingstart-up targeting college fraternities, doesn't have aCEO. Instead, it has four co-CEO,, each in charge ofin the company to view who's responsible for whatrole and what they're working on. Glass Frog pro-vides a "to-do" list that teams use to define the workthey're supposed to be doing and to hold themselvesaccountable for those tasks.Although Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh continues totrumpet self-management, it is unclear if employeeswidely share his enthusiasm. Some employees wel-comed the opportunity for more independence. Withexperience and expertise downplayed, less senioremployees with fresh ideas receive more attention.Introverts have benefited from the expectation thateverybody speak in meetings. Other employees wereconfused and frustrated by numerous mandates,endless meetings, and uncertainty about who didwhat. To whom would they report to if there wereno bosses? What was expected of them if they didnot have a job title, and how would they be compen-sated? Within weeks after Zappos embraced holoc-racy, about 14 percent of employees had left thecompany. The employee exodus has continued. Zap-pos's turnover rate for 2015 was 30 percent, 10 per-centage points above its typical annual attrition rate.Treehouse Island Inc., a Portland, Oregon, onlinecoding school, also had a flat organization. Staffworked four-day weeks, worked only on projects theyrarely had to send e-mail, and had no directbosses. However, the business grew, with about100,000 students enrolled in its online courses and100 employees. Some projects weren't being com-pleted, and employees were unsure of their responsi-bilities. Treehouse wasn't burdened by bureaucracy,but work still stalled nevertheless. Without managersto coordinate projects and supervise and encourageworkers, Treehouse employees weren't as produc-tive as they could have been. According to Treehousefounder Ryan Carson, there was no real reason tohis or her own business function. This structure isrepeated all the way down the company's hierarchy.All Chubbies employees have access to the same dataas its top managers. According to Tom Montgomery,one of the Chubbies co-CEOS, when you don't havea traditional CEO and final decision maker, you haveto trust people to make the right decisions based onthe information they see. Although it takes time tobuild up that trust, once you do, the company canmove much more quickly.Montgomery points out that in the past, an associ-ate specializing in events for clients might report toa manager in the marketing department in charge ofthinking about why the company should be throw-ing events in the first place. Today, the event plan-ner working alone can use an array of dashboards todetermine exactly how many Facebook likes, Insta-gram posts, and sales arose from a particular event,likeand she is able to decide on her own whether futureevents should be scheduled. With the right data andtools to back up her decision, she doesn't need amanager to validate her choices.Web retailer Zappos.com Inc. announced in 2013that it was eliminating managers in order to keepthe 1,500-person company from becoming too rigid,too unwieldy, and too bureaucratic as it grows.Zappos adopted a "holocracy" model in which work-ers manage themselves without the aid of middlemanagers. In contrast to a traditional corporatework hard because no one knew about it. Some ofTreehouse's best employees started believing that notas much was expected of them. Chapter 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy 121Questions about which subjects to teach wouldspark much analysis and chatter but resulted infew answers or plans. Michael Watson, who headedTreehouse finance and operations, estimated thathours. With roles now clearly defined and managerstracking assignments, e-mail is actually enhancingproductivity.According to Quy Huy, professor of strategy at theSingapore campus of the prestigious graduate busi-ness school Insead, middle managers are often vili-fied as symptoms of corporate bloat, but things fallapart without them.decisions about matters such as Treehouse's websitedesign took twice as long as they should have.Treehouse partially reversed course in the springof 2015. Employees still work four-day weeks, butthey now have managers. Since that change wasmade, revenue has increased along with the numberof minutes of video courses the company produces.The time required for customer support employ-ees to respond to students who have questionshas dropped to three and a half hours from sevenSources: David Gelles, "The Zappos Exodus Continues After a RadicalManagement Experiment," New York Times, January 13, 2016; Bour-ree Lam, "Why Are So Many Zappos Employees Leaving?" The Atlan-tic, January 15, 2016; Christopher Mims, "Data Is the New MiddleManager," Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2015; and Rachel Feintzeig,"Radical Idea at the Office: Middle Managers," Wall Street Journal,April 18, 2015.CASE STUDY QUESTIONS1. How do flat organizations differ from traditionalbureaucratic hierarchies?from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatterorganization?4. Can technology replace managers? Explain your2. How has information technology made it possibleto eliminate middle manager positions?answer.3. What management, organization, and technologyissues would you consider if you wanted to move

Question

How do flat organizations differ from traditional bureaucratic hierarchies?How has information technology made it possible to eliminate middle manager positions? What management, organization, and technology issues would you consider if you wanted to move from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization?Can technology replace managers? Explain your answer. 120 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked EnterpriseINTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENTCan Technology Replace Managers?Start-up companies are known for being innovative,and one of those innovations appears to be the waythey are being managed. A number of these newfirms are trying to minimize headcount and maxi-mize agility by eliminating management hierarchy.In place of managers, they're turning to technol-ogy, including user-friendly software and low-costchain of command, holocracy organizes the busi-ness as a series of overlapping, self-governing&#34;circles.&#34; Instead of having jobs, holocracies have&#34;roles.&#34; Each role belongs to a circle rather thana department. The circles overlap, and individu-hold many different roles. Individuals assignedroles in these circles work together, and their meet-ing outcomes are recorded using web-based soft-ware called Glass Frog. This system allows anyoneweb-based services such as Amazon.com's Redshiftfor storing corporate data, analyzing the data, andpresenting the results in the form of dashboardsthat anyone in the firm can use. In the past suchdata were difficult to obtain, required more seniormanagers to organize and interpret, or could not beanalyzed without expensive business intelligencesystems costing millions of dollars. Today even smallstart-ups can afford to store and manipulate nearlylimitless pools of data in near real time.For example, Chubbies, a rapidly growing clothingstart-up targeting college fraternities, doesn't have aCEO. Instead, it has four co-CEO,, each in charge ofin the company to view who's responsible for whatrole and what they're working on. Glass Frog pro-vides a &#34;to-do&#34; list that teams use to define the workthey're supposed to be doing and to hold themselvesaccountable for those tasks.Although Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh continues totrumpet self-management, it is unclear if employeeswidely share his enthusiasm. Some employees wel-comed the opportunity for more independence. Withexperience and expertise downplayed, less senioremployees with fresh ideas receive more attention.Introverts have benefited from the expectation thateverybody speak in meetings. Other employees wereconfused and frustrated by numerous mandates,endless meetings, and uncertainty about who didwhat. To whom would they report to if there wereno bosses? What was expected of them if they didnot have a job title, and how would they be compen-sated? Within weeks after Zappos embraced holoc-racy, about 14 percent of employees had left thecompany. The employee exodus has continued. Zap-pos's turnover rate for 2015 was 30 percent, 10 per-centage points above its typical annual attrition rate.Treehouse Island Inc., a Portland, Oregon, onlinecoding school, also had a flat organization. Staffworked four-day weeks, worked only on projects theyrarely had to send e-mail, and had no directbosses. However, the business grew, with about100,000 students enrolled in its online courses and100 employees. Some projects weren't being com-pleted, and employees were unsure of their responsi-bilities. Treehouse wasn't burdened by bureaucracy,but work still stalled nevertheless. Without managersto coordinate projects and supervise and encourageworkers, Treehouse employees weren't as produc-tive as they could have been. According to Treehousefounder Ryan Carson, there was no real reason tohis or her own business function. This structure isrepeated all the way down the company's hierarchy.All Chubbies employees have access to the same dataas its top managers. According to Tom Montgomery,one of the Chubbies co-CEOS, when you don't havea traditional CEO and final decision maker, you haveto trust people to make the right decisions based onthe information they see. Although it takes time tobuild up that trust, once you do, the company canmove much more quickly.Montgomery points out that in the past, an associ-ate specializing in events for clients might report toa manager in the marketing department in charge ofthinking about why the company should be throw-ing events in the first place. Today, the event plan-ner working alone can use an array of dashboards todetermine exactly how many Facebook likes, Insta-gram posts, and sales arose from a particular event,likeand she is able to decide on her own whether futureevents should be scheduled. With the right data andtools to back up her decision, she doesn't need amanager to validate her choices.Web retailer Zappos.com Inc. announced in 2013that it was eliminating managers in order to keepthe 1,500-person company from becoming too rigid,too unwieldy, and too bureaucratic as it grows.Zappos adopted a &#34;holocracy&#34; model in which work-ers manage themselves without the aid of middlemanagers. In contrast to a traditional corporatework hard because no one knew about it. Some ofTreehouse's best employees started believing that notas much was expected of them. Chapter 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy 121Questions about which subjects to teach wouldspark much analysis and chatter but resulted infew answers or plans. Michael Watson, who headedTreehouse finance and operations, estimated thathours. With roles now clearly defined and managerstracking assignments, e-mail is actually enhancingproductivity.According to Quy Huy, professor of strategy at theSingapore campus of the prestigious graduate busi-ness school Insead, middle managers are often vili-fied as symptoms of corporate bloat, but things fallapart without them.decisions about matters such as Treehouse's websitedesign took twice as long as they should have.Treehouse partially reversed course in the springof 2015. Employees still work four-day weeks, butthey now have managers. Since that change wasmade, revenue has increased along with the numberof minutes of video courses the company produces.The time required for customer support employ-ees to respond to students who have questionshas dropped to three and a half hours from sevenSources: David Gelles, &#34;The Zappos Exodus Continues After a RadicalManagement Experiment,&#34; New York Times, January 13, 2016; Bour-ree Lam, &#34;Why Are So Many Zappos Employees Leaving?&#34; The Atlan-tic, January 15, 2016; Christopher Mims, &#34;Data Is the New MiddleManager,&#34; Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2015; and Rachel Feintzeig,&#34;Radical Idea at the Office: Middle Managers,&#34; Wall Street Journal,April 18, 2015.CASE STUDY QUESTIONS1. How do flat organizations differ from traditionalbureaucratic hierarchies?from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatterorganization?4. Can technology replace managers? Explain your2. How has information technology made it possibleto eliminate middle manager positions?answer.3. What management, organization, and technologyissues would you consider if you wanted to move

Accepted Answer

1. Flat organization is an organization which does not have layers of management, itonly has few or…