Read: organisations 1: Structure of organisations (Mintzberg)

1. Definitions of 'organisation'

• a purposeful collaboration (goal, plans, organising, operation, control and correction)
• several people fulfilling several tasks leads to the necessity of a kind of transfer of will (who decides what) and a kind of coordination ( who is doing what)
  • division of activities;
  • determination of decision making procedures;
  • building communication channels.

One can discern the formal and the informal organisation, complementary to each other or undermining each other.

Simple formulated: an organisation exists because the objective of the organisation is pursued by several people together. The combination 'several people and an objective' asks for division of tasks (horizontal or vertical division of tasks) and for agreements (coordination, transfer of will concerning the goal, or acting by order in a hierarchy).

The variation in both, division of tasks and mechanisms of coordination, leads to a variety of different forms of organisations.

For division of tasks below and for mechanisms of coordination see

2. Division of labour

• Vertical differentiation: in levels, on the base of costs reduction, leading to high and low, to hierarchy.
• Horizontal differentiation: the formation of divisions or sections, functional compartments.
• Internal differentiation: F-division, functional.
  Division of labour according to the phases of the process or to the nature of the activities, grouped along the lines of similarity. Organisational independency of sub processes. (purchase, processing, sale)
  Risk: disappearing coherence.
  Necessity: collective coordination.
• Internal specialisation: division of labour according to the goal of the activities or functions. (purchasers, salesmen)
  P-division, by products. (shoes, stocking, underwear,)
  G-division, by geographical place.(north and south department)
  M-division by market segment or consumer group.(adults, children)
  (Mintzberg adds: by time, by knowledge and skills, for example the night shift, the doctors and nurses.)

Advantages F-division:
Concentration of similar activities.

• mechanising and acquisition of specialised equipment in behalf of the activities
• high occupancy of people and machines
• high skills and routine, high expertise and knowledge on sub processes, similarities in working attitude and language

Disadvantages F:

• monotony, one-sidedness
• low flexibility
• problems of coordination by a fragmented production process

Advantages P-division:
The end-product has a central position, that is why heterogeneous activities are brought together in one section fast flow of products

• quick problem solving because of the build-in direct coordination
• short communication lines of communication

Disadvantages P:

• high costs because of the need for more machines and means, giving up the benefit of the combination
• low degree of functional expertise

Concluding: P: shorter delivery periods, higher reliability of delivery, higher degree of flexibility is opposed to sacrificing more means.

3. Organisational system

Line, staff, line organisation with staff departments.

*Line

Originates from the disposal of tasks which contain more and more executive elements.

Everyone has a chief or manager to whom one is related in a power structure.

Power of the line: ordering and controlling downwards, accountability upwards.

Following the vertical line:

Advantages:

• clearness and simplicity
• supervision and control from a -status- position;
• coordinating with chief or manager, before executing the order

Disadvantages:

• overburdening the vertical line (if all coordination goes that way);
• over strained expectations of expertise of managers, or a very small span of control.

A solution could be to fit the horizontal line in a line organisation, preserving the hierarchical principal., for instance by institutionalise horizontal coordination on the same hierarchical level, with feedback to the next level: contact passerelle

*Variations of the line

Staff functions:

specialised knowledge on behalf of policy matters (economic investigation, market study, legal advice etc.)

Staff departments:

specialised knowledge on behalf of the operational core (personnel department, administrative department, maintenance department, etc.)

Staff is advisor. The efforts of the staff should be directed to get the advice accepted by the line.

Staff department performs a part of the execution. Product of the staff is a coercive instruction, 'functional control'. The unity of order is abolished.

The line says that something has to be done, the staff department how it has to be done.

'Entente' structure:

Co-ordination in the construction of the organisation (operating on the same level). A board in which the members share the responsibilities (colleagues?), independency in individual areas of decision making, deliberation or consultation in areas of common decision making.

Matrix organisation:

direct cooperation between functionaries from diverse areas of expertise. Project leader with operational authority. Workers fall under the functional manager who stays responsible for the professional aspects.

Project organisation:

idem, but the project leader has operational and line authority over the workers.

*Centralisation and decentralisation

Where are which decisions made. Who has got the authority to make which decisions.

For instance: urgent and local conditions demand a spread of the authority to make decisions: decentralisation.

The need for coordination and the existence of important decisions demand concentration of decision authority: centralisation.

*Task, authority and accountability

These three should always be inextricably bound up with each other. Being charged with a particular task should include the authority to make decisions within that task and the duty to be accountable over that task.

Problems could arise if one of these three elements is lacking.

4.Organisational structures (Mintzberg)

Mintzberg discerns five mechanisms of coordination:

• coordination by mutual adjustment: agreements in a informal consultation;
• direct supervision: a person who gets the responsibility over the work of others, instructing them and controlling their activities;
• standardisation of working processes: f.i. instruction how to assemble a car;
• standardisation of output: the result is fixed, not the way how to attain that result;
• standardisation of skills: a description what should be the necessary training for the job (nursing).

One can often see a sequence of these five mechanisms of coordination with the grow of the organisation. As the complexity is increasing and the degree of difficulty of the work is growing, mutual adjustment as the main coordination mechanism will turn on again.

Mintzberg describes six basic configurations, each of them characterised by the importance of one main coordination mechanism:

Mintzberg describes five main parts of the organisation:

• Strategic Apex: full time top managers;
• Operating Core: the basis of the organisation, where people do the basic work, the core business: making the products or delivering services (shop floor);
• Middle Line: a hierarchy of authorities between apex and core (middle management);
• Techno-structure: outside the line, often directed towards standardisation of the work (staff);
• Support: indirect support of the operating core, of the standardised work.

Upon this base Mintzberg describes five configurations, characterised by the way in which one of the five parts of the organisation is having a key role and in which one of the five coordinating mechanisms is central.

• Simple structure: based on direct supervision, the strategic apex has the key position. Vertical and horizontal centralisation..
• Machine bureaucracy: based on standardisation of working processes. Techno-structure has the key position. Limited horizontal decentralisation.
• Professional organisation: based on standardisation of skills. Operating core has key position. Vertical and horizontal decentralisation.
• Division organisation: based on standardisation of output. Key role for the middle line. Limited vertical decentralisation.
• Ad-hocracy: based on mutual adjustment. Key role for the support structure, sometimes together with operating core. Selective decentralisation.

Later on Mintzberg added a sixth configuration:

• The idealistic organization: based on standardization of norms and values.

The five configurations a bit more elaborated.

Simple structure:

Often a beginning organisation, young, small, no sophisticated techno structure, in a simple and dynamic context. Strong power position of the manager.

Machine bureaucracy:

• a clearly defined hierarchy;
• procedures, rules for all thinkable situations concerning the work that has to be done;
• exactly defined areas of competence;
• 'narrow' specialisations;
• selection and promotion on the base of technical competence;
• impersonal and abstract division of functions and of forming of functions.
  Emphasis on standardisation of the work and narrow specialisms, high degree of division of labour. Mostly low educated workers and a lot of middle managers (mass production)
  Pathology:
• trained incapacity, insufficient use of available knowledge and skills.
• there is a risk that the means become the objectives in themselves. Rules and regulations become a goal, without remembrance to their original service.
• a risk of formalism, ritualism or exaggerated punctuality (negative connotation of the concept bureaucracy);
• depersonalising the relationships by emphasising the formal relationships.

(Connotations: old, big, regulating, no IT technical system, inflexible, simple and stable context, external control, old fashioned)

Professional organisation (also called professional bureaucracy):

Emphasis on standardisation of skills, directed to standardised delivery of services to clients. Highly educated personnel with a lot of influence and authority with respect to their own work Independently working, few middle management, a lot of support for the professionals.

A complex and stable context, a not regulating, not very sophisticated but manageable techno structure.

Division organisation:

Standardisation of output.

Diversified markets (products and services).

The duplicates function as quasi autonomous units, without the necessity to coordinate with the other units. It is exactly prescribed what has to be delegated to the divisions. The coordinating mechanism is the output and this output will be thoroughly controlled. The units will have the tendency to become a machine bureaucracy themselves.

(connotations: old, big, need for power with the middle managers, fashionable)

Ad-hocracy:

Temporary collaborations, project organisation, creative solutions for only-once unique problems.

Sometimes placed outside the line, in order to prevent troubles in the ongoing production.

The ad-hocracy functions as ad hoc teams in a throw away organisation. It demands a high ability to adjust of its workers..

Horizontal job specialisation. Complex and dynamic context, young, sophisticated and often digitalised technical system. Modern.

Sometimes it demands a high tolerance for ambiguity. People who cannot stand that will have the tendency to fix things again in new rules and regulation.

Structure provokes the survival of the fittest.

Mintzberg: Structures in five. Prentice Hall, 1983
Mintzberg: Mintzberg on management. Free Press, NY, 1989.