Organizational Structure

Organizational Structure
There are several different structures: functional, market
oriented, integrated and adaptive structures. Functional
structure refers to an organization form in which grouping
of employees is based on particular functions such as
advertising. Further, the functional selection of structure
may be divided into simple, machine bureaucracy, and
professional bureaucracy. Each of the subdivision may
illustrate a particular industry or organizational need in
order to best optimize the efficiency and effectiveness. In
my experience, the functional structure has a rather
generic approach in which only functional tools are
utilized: this approach ignores the multi-verse and
creative nature of human being. Thus, it may result in
decrease utility and ultimately in lower production
efficiency.

Market oriented approach divides and groups employees based
on the targeted customer segments. This particular approach
uses a reverse methodology i.e. who/what is the targets, in
order to create the most effective group of employees to
serve those particular segments. In my experience, market
oriented approach is more effective than functional
approach: by reverse tracking, firms can select those teams
that are best suited to server their particular goals.

An even better approach is the integrated structure, which
refers to the combination of functional and market oriented
organization. In this particular approach, an organization
can select to implement either approach or combine them.
Such approach naturally creates a greater flexibility in
adapting the organizational response to particular needs of
the market. I believe that such flexibility is a better
choice to reach adaptability.

More adaptive structures attempt to empower employees by
emphasizing core process i.e. horizontal organization, or
creating sponsorships i.e. lattice organizations. This
approach assumes that frontline workers which have a sense
of ownership will naturally have a greater involvement that
may lead to better end results. In my experience employee
empowerment may illustrate a sense of ownership that my
lead to negative outcomes by ignoring core skills and
expertise.

Other approaches such as alliances and modular
organizations which use external resource to streamline
internal dependency function under the assumption that
external entities are reliable partners or subcontractors
which will perform to the highest standards, in order to
minimize the internal cost of adaptability. In my
experience, it is a risky venture to allow external
entities to have influence on back bone structures: the
dependency factor creates minimization of authority and
loss of leverage which in turn may have negative impact on
negotiations and bottom lines.

Personally, I believe that an optimal organization is
simply adaptable: in today's flexible and ever changing
global environment, no organization can have a long term
structure. If the final goal of an organization is its
longevity, it is vital to be elastic and even more
importantly adaptable. Thus, a well structured
organization, is an organization which can reshuffle it
selves in order to adjust to its market and more
importantly adjust to its competitors.

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Organizational Structure
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