Question

Need a 1,000 word self explanatory essay on how characteristics of the functional, matrix & bureaucracy structures will help in ethical decision making & explain how this will help in predicting organizational behavior. Citations from peer reviewed articles can be included.

Please add references if used.

Answer 1

Organizational structure helps in defining activities such as supervision, coordination and task allocation are linked to achieving organizational goals. It is a combination of all the rules, roles and responsibilities in an organization to collectively work to organize a structure which determines how the work is to be done with the correct flow of the information. There are various types of such structures which can benefit the organizations if implemented in the right way.

Functional -

Under this type of organizational structure the groups are made within the organization based on the traditional way of the various functions that are there in the company such as the HR department, marketing, sales and accounting and production departments. This helps in grouping the specialized people of one function into one group so that maximum efficiency can be achieved when all the brains work in the same direction by thinking alike. Tasks are very well coordinated within this type of structure and are all centralized to one goal which helps in producing the products with less time and money and can guarantee efficient services. Once the vertical functions start working together even more better results can be gained out of this design. One group leads to the other, hence inter-dependency works more quickly.

Matrix -

In this structure employees from both functional and product groups are combined together to make things go faster. This design takes advantages of the strengths of each group to accomplish the work efficiently and by overcoming the shortcomings of each. This is best suited in a company where the company produces 2 products such as Shoes and clothes. Now the company can make matrix structure by having tow separate functional department that is - shoes sales department and clothes sales department. This way you can combine the product and the function for each of the product so that there is less confusion while selling each of these. It allows to diminish the vertical communication to a more horizontal communication which allows the spread of information across task boundaries, which happen more quickly.

Bureaucracy -

Under this design the structure is perfectly centralized and the leader makes all the decisions and all communications are done on one-o-one basis. When adopted in small and new organizations it helps in standardizing the administration as the growth and development are in the hands of one individual. This structure has a clear set of roles and responsibilities at each hierarchical level so that everyone knows what to do and when. Since there are many layers in this structure, decision making authority has to pass thorough many levels than in a flatter organization. The top level managers have a tremendous level of control over the structural decisions. However it discourages creativity and innovation and people feel a little suffocated with this as the time passes and when the need is to adapt to the changing conditions in the market.