Structure and Strategies
An organization should have some units to help them reach their primary goals. Thus, an organization must include any cluster with different purpose and specific jobs to be done. Research also proved that different structural design work best with different organizational strategies.
Huge amount of people ask “how should I plan the structure of my business?”
According to the resource, there are factors would likely affect the structure of a business. These are:
1. Strategy. As a business is to hit their primary purpose, strategy is indeed an important one. Change of a strategy would likely to rearrange overall structure.
2. Size. In a naught point of a business — one person starting a business — logically there will only a person manage altogether. Its finance, production, and marketing is handled by the former. As the business grows, it starts to divide the structure into any departments and so on till the business become a large organization. Typically, over two thousand for a large organization. Furthermore, size will influence less as it has reached a complex structure.
3. Technology. As if a business have sophisticated technology, the organization will have less worker — mechanistic structure — An initial research traced to Joan Woodward, which divide a firm into three categories. Unit production which has small batches, mass production thaat described as large manufacturing, and process production that include continuous-process production.
4. Environmental uncertainty. Mechanistic structure is more effective than the organic structure as it has more stable and simple. Therefore, managers are trying to reduce environmental uncertainty in order to make it flexible.
Organizational Design Option
When making a decision about a structure design, manager have at least 3 options:
1. Simple. The authority of a whole organization is in an only person. This can be considered as a start-up. As the business bigger, this structure no more effective. Beside, the former will start to choose between functional or divisionals structure. It is the most flexible as the authority handled by a person. In case the person handle his whole business alone, it relies on the person. Which any risk are taken by one person.
2. Functional. This structure divide the specific jobs into few unit make it more complete. This structure cost less as employees are grouped with others. In the other hand, functional specialist can by confused in any case caused by the similar task of any unit.
3. Divisional. Even though the structure would be the same as functional, it is different from the autonomy. Each unit have its only autonomy with a manager who manages over the unit and has authority in it. In conlcusion, the manager of each unit have responsible for each unit they manage. What make it’s good that manager of each division has responsible to ther own unit. In order to have a good one, it caused the organization have more costs.
As we live in twenty-first centuries, the traditional structure is no more effective for us to start a business. And so, we need to be more organic.
Team Structure
One example of structure used nowadays. It is effective as the entire organization has no authority flows from top to bottom. Therefore, all employees within the unit have responsible to their work performance.
Matrix Structure
An organization structure which assign specialists of any functional departments to work on a project led by project manager. The uniqueness of this structure make the employee have two managers, their functional manager and project manager.
Project structure
By using this design of structure, it makes employees continuosly work on any project. The uniqueness of this structure is all work performance in a project performed by teams of employees.
The Boundaryless Organization
A structure where the design is not limited and not defined exactly how is the structure. It is formed in order to eliminate vertical and horizontal boundaries as well as eliminate the barries between customer and supplier.
So, based on the discussion about structure managing, Author thinks team structure is the best to make an organization become effective. It costs less time to start an idea, it dissapears vertical barriers, moreover that it is proved by how Google works.
Resource: Robbins, Stephen P. & Mary A. Coulter. 2017. Management (Global Edition). Pearson.