Mintzbergs Five Types of Organization Structure - Coursework Example

Course name: Professor’s name: University name: City, State Date of submission: МINTZBЕRG’s FIVЕ TYРЕS ОF ОRGАNIZАTIОN STRUСTURЕ. WАYs in which МINTZBЕRG’S WОRK АDVАNСЕ ОUR UNDЕRSTАNDING BЕYОND ‘SСIЕNTIFIС MАNАGЕMЕNT.' (Words: 1920) Introduction Organization structure refers to the way in which an organization’s management distributes power and roles within an organization. These helps the business to utilize efficiently the resources available so that it can attain competitive advantage. Hendricks defines organization structure as the extent in which an organization achieves complexity, centralization, and formalization[Hen12]. According to Henry Mintzberg, an organization is differentiated into three basic dimensions[Fre12]. The first one is the key part of the organization that plays the role of determining its success or failure. The second one is the prime coordinating mechanism that is the primary method the organization uses to coordinate its operations. The third one is decentralization that shows the extent to which the organization involves its workers in the decision-making process. An organization has the following key parts. Firstly, the strategic apex that is the top management and its support staff. Secondly, the operative core that is made up of workers who carry out the organization’s tasks. Thirdly, the middle line that includes the middle and lower-level management. Fourthly, the technostructure that is made up of the analysts such as accountants, engineers, planners, personnel managers, and business. Lastly, the support staff that gets made up the people who provide ancillary services. The prime coordinating mechanism includes: firstly, direct supervision where one person is responsible for the duties of others. Secondly, standardization of work process that shows that the content of task is programmed. Thirdly, standardization of skills which aims at specifying training necessary to do a certain task. Fourthly, standardization of output that aims at the specification of results. Lastly, a mutual adjustment that exists when to work is coordinated via informal communication. The three types of decentralization an organization employs are vertical decentralization that is the distribution of power down the chain of command. The second one is horizontal decentralization where their authority gets shared between line and staff. The last one is selective decentralization where decision-making authority gets assigned to different units within the organization. Mintzberg suggests that the usage of the three basic dimensions results in five structural configurations. These five structural configurations are machine bureaucracy, simple structure, divisionalized structure, professional bureaucracy, and adhocracy. Mintzberg’s five organizational structure Simple structure In a simple structure, the strategic apex is the key part[Fre12]. It employs horizontal and vertical centralization and uses direct supervision. Some areas where the simple structure gets applied include new government departments, relatively small corporations, small elementary school districts, and medium sized retail stores. An organization that uses simple structure consists of the top manager and a few workers in the operative core. This type of structure does not have technostructure, and its support staff is small. Employees perform overlapping tasks. For example, in a small elementary school districts, teachers and administrators perform many of the tasks that the support staff and technostructure perform in larger districts. Since the organizations that use simple structure are small, coordination is informal, and direct supervision gets maintained. Moreover, these organizations is capable of adapting to environmental changes rapidly. Also, innovation is difficult because of inadequate resources. Machine bureaucracy In machine bureaucracy, the technostructure is the key part[Fre12]. Moreover, it uses limited horizontal decentralization and applies standardization of work processes as its main coordinating mechanism. It resembles Hage’s mechanistic organization and has many similar characteristics as Weber’s ideal bureaucracy. In this kind of organization structure, there is a high degree of work specialization and formalization. Also, decision making process is centralized. It has many levels in the chain of command from top management to the bottom of the organization characterized by the narrow span of management and tall organization. It requires little lateral or horizontal coordination. Moreover, it has a large support staff and technostructure. This kind of organization structure gets mostly used by steel companies, automobile manufacturers, and large government organization. Machine bureaucracy has a typically stable environment, and its primary goal is to achieve internal efficiency. Professional bureaucracy In a professional bureaucracy, operating core is the key part[Fre12]. Its prime coordinating mechanism is standardization of skills, and it applies vertical and horizontal decentralization. An organization that uses professional bureaucracy is relatively formalized but decentralized so that it can provide autonomy to professionals. Moreover, it has highly trained professionals who provide non-routine services to clients. Also, it has a small technostructure, a little top management and it has a few middle managers. However, the professional bureaucracy has a large support staff who provide clerical and maintenance support for the professional operating core. Its major goals are to provide high-quality service and innovate. Organizations with such structure exist in complex but stable environments and are moderate to large. In this type of organizations, coordination problems are common. Organizations that use professional bureaucracy include hospitals, universities, and large law firms. Divisionalized form In divisionalized form, the middle line is the key part[Fre12]. Its prime coordinating mechanism is standardization of output and uses limited vertical decentralization. It applies decentralization of decision making at the divisional level. Moreover, coordination among separate divisions is limited apart from corporate-level personnel. Each division in this kind of structure is relatively centralized and looks like machine bureaucracy. The technostructure is located at corporate headquarters so that it can deliver services to all the other divisions. Moreover, the support staff is distributed within each division. Large corporations mostly use Divisionalized form. Adhocracy In adhocracy, the support staff is the key part[Fre12]. Its means of coordination is a mutual adjustment and uses particular patterns of decentralization. In this type of organizational structure, formalization and decentralization tend to be low. Moreover, it involves technical specialists in the organization’s operative core thus making its technostructure small. Since the structure is complex, it employs a large support staff to help its complication. Adhocracies use sophisticated technology and engage in non-routine tasks. Organizations with this kind of structure have innovation and rapid adoption of changing environment as their primary goals. Organizations with this structure are mostly medium sized, use resources efficiently and must be adaptable. Examples of organizations that use adhocracy include research and development firms, aerospace and electronics industries, and very innovative school districts. Adhocracy in a way resembles Hage’s organic organization. Ways in which Mintzberg’s work advances our understanding of scientific management Under the old type of management, success depends upon getting the initiative of a worker that is rare to achieve. On the other hand, under scientific management initiative of employees is obtained with absolute uniformity. Also, under scientific management the manager acquires new burdens, new responsibilities, and new duties that do not exist under traditional management[MBA10]. These burdens include gathering all the traditional knowledge that in the past were held by the workers. A manager also gets tasked with tabulating, classifying, and reducing the knowledge of rules, laws, and formulae helpful to workers in doing their daily work. Scientific management has four principles. These four principles include the Replace rule-of-thumb work method with methods that have a scientific study of the tasks. Mintzberg five organizational structure show that there is scientific study among organizations today before adopting an organization structure. Secondly, scientific selection, training, and development of each worker instead of leaving them to train themselves. To understand this one can use Mintzberg second basic dimension on standardization of skills[Fre12]. This standardization of skills helps in obtaining specialization of a particular task by an employee thus improving the quality of the job. Thirdly, cooperating to ensure that the scientifically developed methods get followed. Using Mintzberg direct supervision under second basic dimension one can get to understand this principle easily. Fourthly, a division of work equally between managers and workers where the manager applies scientific management in planning work and the work performs the task. Mintzberg clearly explains this principle using his third basic dimension, that is, type of decentralization an organization uses. Using Mintzberg’s five organizational structure, it is clear that scientific management is very beneficial to organizations. In every type of organizational structure, there is the key part, the prime coordinating mechanism and the type of decentralization that an organization uses[Fre12]. This three dimension describes how each of the five organizational structures enables an organization to operate as a unit. Under scientific management, an organization identifies which organizational structure fits its line of operation and makes use of the three basic dimensions to enable it to attain its goals. Figure 1. Organization’s structure key parts Under scientific management, an organization is made up of the top management, middle management, technical support, support staff and general employees. This scientific management can be made clear by the use Mintzberg’s organization’s structure key parts. These key parts include strategic apex that makes the top managers of an organization. Technostructure, which is made up of analysts such as planners, engineers, accountants and so forth[Fre12]. The middle line that consist of the middle and low-level management. The operative core forms the segment of workers who carry out the organization's tasks. Lastly, the support staff that is made up of people who perform ancillary services for a company. Using Mintzberg’s second basic dimension that is prime coordinating mechanism it is easy to understand to understand how scientific management converted skilled crafts into several simplified jobs. The aim of this was to make the jobs easy so that unskilled workers who can easily get trained for the tasks can get to perform them. Prime coordinating mechanism has the following parts that help in understanding scientific management: firstly, direct supervision which means that one person has the task of coordinating and ensuring other workers perform their duties to ensure efficiency and increase productivity[Fre12]. Secondly, standardization of work process that ensure that the content of work is programmed. This standardization refers to the job description to aid in governing the job performance of workers in a company. Thirdly, standardization of skills which means that the required training to do a certain job get specified. Standardization of skills ensures that every worker is trained to perform a particular task, for example, accountants, engineers and so forth. In scientific management, this helps in ensuring proper quality of service deliverance. Also, standardization of output which means that results of work are specified. Under scientific management, this can get achieved by ensuring that employees a competent and have the required skills to perform a given task. Lastly, a mutual adjustment that shows that work gets coordinated via informal communication. Scientific management ensures that there is a division of labor in an organization. This division of labor can get well understood by the study of Mintzberg five organizational structure. In each of that five structures, labor is divided systematically. In the simple structure that employs direct supervision, the manager performs the duty of supervising other workers in the operative core who perform the tasks in a company[Fre12]. In machine bureaucracy that employs standardization of work, top management makes decisions while other employees take orders from the management. In a professional bureaucracy that uses standardization of skills decision making process is given to all units. In divisionalized for which use standardization of output the technostructure gets located at corporate headquarters so that it can provide service to all divisions. Lastly, in adhocracy that uses mutual adjustment involves technical specialists in the organization’s operative core. It has a complex structure that requires much support thus it has a large support staff. References Hen12: , (Hendricks, 2012), Fre12: , (Fred, 2012), MBA10: , (MBA, 2010), Read More