BUREAUCRATIC STRUCTURES: characterised by

1
BUREAUCRATIC STRUCTURES characterised by -

• division of labour
• well defined hierarchies
• formalisation
• impersonality
• well defined career paths
• employment based on merit
• development of rules, policies and procedures
  (recorded in writing) to cover all eventualities

2
ADVANTAGES

• facilitates mgt control without day to day
  involvement
• removal of favouritism
• reduced ambiguity
• rapid decision making
• consistency
• clearly defined reporting mechanisms
• reduced employee stress

3
DISADVANTAGES

• procedures and policies become basic standards -
  employees do no more and no less
• employee alienation
• concentration of power at the top of the
  hierarchy
• impersonal to outsiders
• impossible to establish rules and procedures to
  cover all eventualities
• slow to establish new rules and procedures

4
JOAN WOODWARDTechnology and Structure

• Unit small batch production organisations
  which manufacture and assemble small orders or
  single units to direct customer specification
• Large batch mass production characterised by
  long production runs of a standardised product
• Process (continuous flow) production
  represents the highest level of
  technology occurs where the process involves the
  continual processing of the same raw material eg
  oil refining

5
Impact on Structure

• Unit successful organisations characterised by a
  loose formal structure and hierarchy of
  management explained by reliance on skilled
  labour and need for flexibility to be able to
  meet individual customer needs
• Mass successful organisations characterised by
  wide spans of control and flat structures
  (facilitated by large numbers of employees
  performing the same, simple, automated process)
• Process due to the high level of technological
  sophistication and the interdependence of the
  process, successful organisations relied on
  narrow spans of control, resulting in tall
  structures and well defined hierarchies of
  authority

6
BURNS AND STALKER

• When novelty and unfamiliarity in both market
  situation and technical information become the
  accepted order of things, a fundamentally
  different kind of management system becomes
  appropriate from that which applies to a
  relatively stable commercial and technical
  environment

7
Environmental stability

• STABLE
• stable, predictable demand
• unchanging, well known set of competitors
• technological change evolutionary
• govt. policy stable and predictable

• UNSTABLE
• demand subject to rapid change as new products
  come on line
• competitors change rapidly
• technological change is revolutionary
• govt. policy is unpredictable and subject to
  rapid change

8
Mechanistic Structure(stable environments)

• well defined chains of command
• specialisation and division of labour
• detailed job descriptions, including precise
  definitions of rights, obligations and methods
• reliance on vertical communication
• reliance on rules and procedures to cover all
  eventualities (as far as possible)

9
Organic Structures(unstable environments)

• no preoccupation with adhering to chain of
  command
• less emphasis on division of labour
• divisional rather than functional structure
• jobs are not rigidly defined
• emphasis on lateral communication
• power and influence of junior and middle managers
  is relatively high