Organizational Structure and Coordination Quiz

• Functional structures encourage specialization and often individuals focus on their own means, not the organizations broader ends.
• Performance cannot be easily measured and functional structures lack the mechanism of cording the work flow.
• Ignores mutual adjustment and direct supervision and relies on standardization to achieve coordination.
• More bureaucratic, with more formalized work flow.
• Typically, tall organizational structure.
• Market-based structures are best suited for workflow coordination at the expense of process and scale specialization.
• Unit size in relationship to coordinating mechanisms:
• Unit size increases with standardization, similarity in the tasks performed in a given unit, and the employees’ needs for autonomy and self-actualization.
• Unit size decreases with the need for close direct supervision, the need for mutual adjustment among complex interdependent tasks, and the need for members of the unit to have frequent access to the manager for consultation or advice.
• The middle line is best suited for liaison devices.
• In the technostructure and operating core the shifting matrix and task forces and more common.
• In the strategic apex standing committees and task forces are most common.

Summarizing the key findings from the text above, we can see that tall organizational structures are ineffective for coordinating work flows, while market-based structures are more efficient. Units are typically smaller in the strategic apex than in the other two structures, and the use of coordinating mechanisms, such as liaison devices, is dependent on the particular organization.

• Centralization is the tightest means of coordinating decision making in an organization, while decentralization allows the organization to respond quickly to local conditions.
• Vertical decentralization refers to the dispersal of formal power down the chain of line authority, from the strategic apex down to the middle line, while horizontal decentralization refers to the extent to which nonmanagers control decision processes.

Test your knowledge on organizational structures, coordination mechanisms and decentralization in organizations. Explore the effectiveness of tall and market-based structures, unit sizes, and coordinating devices within different organizational levels.