Administrative theorists concluded many decades ago that the most effective organizations have a narrow span of control. Yet today’s top-performing manufacturing firms have a wide span of control. Why is this possible? Under what circumstances, if any, should manufacturing firms have a narrow span of control?

There are at least two reasons why many organizations are moving toward flatter organizational structures with a wider span of control.

First, flatter structures require less overhead -- there are fewer middle managers and more people directly involved in the production of goods and/or services.

Second, flatter structures are consistent with the trend toward greater autonomy and employee involvement. Managers necessarily have a wide span of control in flatter structures, and they are unable to engage in close supervision. Instead, employees (and work teams) are given more freedom to make decisions without management review.

A narrow span or control would be most appropriate with a workforce that is low skilled and made up of workers with a high power distance. In such cases, the close supervision and control would be less likely to be viewed as a lack of trust among workers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two college graduates recently joined the same major newspaper as journalists. Both work long hours and have tight deadlines for completing their stories. They are under constant pressure to scout out new leads and be the first to report new controversies. One journalist is increasingly fatigued and despondent and has taken several days of sick leave. The other is getting the work done and seems to enjoy the challenges. Use your knowledge of stress to explain why these two journalists are reacting differently to their jobs.

This incident describes two journalists with similar stressors experiencing different levels of stress and stress consequences. This illustrates the distinction between stressors and stress. It may also highlight the importance of individual differences in stress. One possible reason why these two journalists are experiencing different stress levels is that they might perceive the situation differently. The low stress journalist might have higher self-esteem and confidence that he/she can complete the work. A second explanation might be that the journalists have different threshold levels of resistance to a stressor . Both are recent graduates and we don’t know if they are a similar age. However, the high stress journalist might have less resistance because he/she has recently experienced other stressors , such as death of a family member. Finally, the different stress levels might be explained by the different strategies used to manage the stress. The ...
Read more

After hearing a seminar on organizational learning, a mining company executive argues that this perspective ignores the fact that mining companies could not rely on knowledge alone to stay in business. They also need physical capital (such as digging and ore processing equipment) and land (where the minerals are located). In fact, these two may be more important than what employees carry around in their heads. Evaluate the mining executive’s comments.

This question relates to the importance of organizational learning perspective in achieving organizational effectiveness. Meanwhile, the question emphasizes the critical understanding that organizational effectiveness is a function of an overall holistic system view of the effective and efficient interplay of all three elements of software (the knowledge and processes), hardware (the structures and the people) and the harmonious relationship between the organization and its environment. Focusing on any one component at the expense of the rest would definitely result in incomplete picture of an effective organization. Some executives still view land and capital as a company’s most valuable assets . They give lip service to the idea that “People are our most value assets” but still don’t understand that land and capital have little value without people . For instance, this mining company would not have found land with ore deposits unless it had the knowledge to find those minera...
Read more

During a diversity management session, a manager suggests that stereotypes are a necessary part of working with others. “I have to make assumptions about what’s in the other person’s head, and stereotypes help me do that,” she explains. “It’s better to rely on stereotypes than to enter a working relationship with someone from another culture without any idea of what they believe in!” Discuss the merits of and problems with the manager’s statement.

This question raises the fundamental dilemma that stereotyping is both a necessary and a troublesome activity in the perceptual process. On the one hand, the manager is correct that stereotyping helps us to fill in missing information, such as the non-observable characteristics of a person that only become apparent after a long time. Also, stereotyping helps us to organize information more efficiently by placing people into predetermined categories. Although most stereotypes have some truth to them, there is also plenty of error and distortion which could lead to employment discrimination. It is unlikely that someone perfectly fits the stereotype category, so we tend to assign traits that are untrue. Stereotyping makes it difficult for people to alter their beliefs about a person regarding traits that conflict with the stereotype.
Read more