Organisational structure & design - What are the six keys element in organizational design?

9 important questions on Organisational structure & design - What are the six keys element in organizational design?

What are the six key elements in organizational design?

- Work specialization
- Departementalization
- Authority and responsability
- Span of control
- Centralization vs. decentralization
- Formalization

What is work specialization?

Dividing the work activities into separate jobs, it's also called division of labor. Employees specialize in one certain activity so that these can be divided, and this increases the work output. Some organizations require high developed skills and in some low developed skills. If all the workers were engaged in all the steps of the way, everyone would have to specialize in all the activities, employees would be working below their skill levels. This is inefficient.

What are authority and respsibillity?

First you have to be aware of the chain of command. Who reports to whom?  A person in a managerial position who has the right to give orders and expect the orders to be obeyed, has authority. The responsibillity is the obligation to perform assigned duties.
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What are the different types of authority relationships?

- Line authority: Entitles the manager to direct the work of an employee. It is the employer-employee relationship that extends from the top of th organization to the lower levels.

Staff authority: Positions with some authority that have been created to assist, support and advise line authority.

What is the unity of command?

An employee who has to report to 2 or more managers will have conflicting demands or priorities. The unity of command is a structure in which an employee should only report to 1 manager.

What is today's view of authority and responsibillity?

Authority and responsibillity was important 30 to 60 years ago but this isn't the case anymore. Organizations are complexer than ever. Researchers have proven that you don't have to be a a manager to have power and authority is only one element of having power.

What is the differnce between authority and power?

Authority is a right that you get with your position in the company. Power refers to the capacity of influencing decisions

What is the span of control?

The number of employees a manager can effectively and efficiently supervise. When a manager rises in a company his problems are getting more complicated so his span of control should be smaller than lower managers.

In today's view the span of control is expanding to gain time while making decsisions.

How do centralization and decentralization differ?

The main question here is at what organization level should decisions be made?

Centramization is the degree to which decision are being made by tu upper levels managers.

Decentralization is the degree to which lower level managers provide input or even make decisions themselves.

No organization is completely centralized or decentralized. Earlier organisations had a pyramid form and they were centralized, now organizations are more complex which makes it impossible to centralize everything.

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