Mintzberg's Organizational Structure Framework

Mintzberg's Structural Framework

• Henry Mintzberg (1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1989) provides a framework for examining organizational structure, which is defined as the way an organization divides its labor into tasks and achieves coordination among them.

Five Coordinating Mechanisms

• Mutual adjustment: coordination through informal communication and simple process of informal discussion and adjustment.
• Direct supervision: coordination through personal command, where one individual has the responsibility for monitoring and controlling the work of others.
• Standardization of work processes: achieved by specifying or programming the contents of the work.
• Standardization of outputs: attained by specifying the results of the work, where the fundamental dimensions of the product or performance are enumerated.
• Standardization of worker skills: provides indirect control of work, where skills and knowledge are standardized by specifying the kind of training required to do the work.

Characteristics of Coordinating Mechanisms

• Mutual adjustment is direct and basic, necessary in both simple and complicated organizations.
• Direct supervision becomes more necessary as the size of an organization increases.
• As work activities become more complicated, standardization is necessary.
• Standardization of work processes, outputs, and skills are three basic ways to achieve standardization in organizations.

Example of Standardization of Skills

• Anesthesiologists and surgeons in the operating room, where their standardized skills provide most of the coordination.

Organization Structure

• Each organization specializes in one of the five coordinating mechanisms, which has important consequences for the basic structure of the organization.
• Mintzberg identifies five key parts of the organization:
  • Operating core: comprised of those who perform the basic work, directly related to the production of products and services.
  • Administrative component: has three parts:
    • Strategic apex: top administrators responsible for ensuring the organization effectively serves its mission.
    • Middle line: administrators who connect the apex with the operating core.
    • Technostructure: involved in the design and development of the organization's work processes and systems.

Learn about Henry Mintzberg's framework for examining organizational structure, including the five basic coordinating mechanisms used to monitor and control work.