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The challenge of finding an appropriate structure

6 important questions on The challenge of finding an appropriate structure

What are the functions of an organisation structure?

1. Implementation of strategy
2. Define areas of responsibility
3. Provide control mechanisms
4. Facilitate the flow of production
5. Promote coordination and information flows
6. Monitor and respond to environmental change
7. Maintain and promote organisational knowledge

What are the advantages of Weber's bureaucracy?

1. Merit as employee selection criterion
2. Security of employment
3. Rules and regulations for objective decision-making
4. Clear lines of authority and responsibility

What are the disadvantages of Weber's bureaucracy?

1. Displacement of organisational goals by subunit goals
2. Tenure as driver of complacency
3. Bureaupathic behaviour
4. Difficulty to respond to changing conditions due to formalisation
5. Employee alienation
6. Power concentration
7. Overstaffing
8. Tendency towards large size and low productivity

What environmental changes have led to a demand for new organisational structures?

1. Changes in government policy (deregularisation of markets by the government in 1980s)
2. Enhanced level of competition
3. Globalisation
4. Technological innovations
5. Demand for profitability
6. Commodification of markets
7. End of the public service mentality
8. social changes and expectations

What are the modifications to the traditional bureaucracies?

1. Focusing management effort on key responsibilities
2. Rethinking the centralisation-decentralisation balance
3. Moving focus from internal processes to external adaptation
4. Greater use of market controls
5. Improving communication flows
6. Working back from the customer
7. Concentrating effort on core competencies
8. Improving availability of information

What are the structural innovations of the last 25 years?

1. Expanded use of boundary spanners (identify environmental changes that are occurring, and, in turn, represent the organisation to the environment)
2. Variations on adhocracies
3. An emphasis on teamwork
4. A shift towards market control
5. A new social contract