Hierarchical dependence
| Hierarchical dependence |
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| See also |
Each company must be organized. The main problems of development of hierarchical dependencies is choosing between unity of management and use of broad span of control.
Rules of shaping hierarchical dependencies
The first rule of development is unity of management. It says that a subordinate should receive the commands and orders from one superior.
Critics, however, believe that such a strict vertical hierarchical subordination is not conducive to the effectiveness of the operation.
Matrix organizational structures does not follow this rule, although without forgetting about it.
The second rule is the principle of proper span of control, each person exercising managerial functions should have proper amount of subordinates that he can effectively guide.
However, it is difficult to specify the maximum number of people that should be supervised by one manager.Some assume that possible span of control should depend on number of contacts, supervised by a specific manager.
Later with the idea of limiting the number of direct reports, there was a recommendation of flattening organizational structure. In addition, more attention was paid to analyzing of factors influencing effective span of control.
Determination of an appropriate span of control takes into account a number of factors:
- qualification of manager and subordinates as well as degree of autonomy of workers.
- organization of company, required scope of cooperation between the various cells and internal organization of the cell,
- quality and efficiency of communication systems and the geographical deployment of personnel.
References
- Olchi, W. G. (1978). The transmission of control through organizational hierarchy. Academy of Management Journal, 21(2), 173-192.
