Organizational design and structure

Different organizations are working under different structure, so it has different ways to divide work and co-ordinate activities to achieve certain objectives. This week we learnt in class about formal VS informal, like Apple is a formal organization, they concerned with the relationship on hierarchical, and has its own set of distinct rules and regulation while informal focused on relationships between employees, such as, Sussex study group, we get together informally within University of Sussex, the communication is very fast and efficient. Also, I’ve learnt different structure like tall, flat and matrix structure, both can be centralized or decentralized, in which showing different chain of command and span of control, those are very important for organizing an organization.

Real life examples that I can think of: 

Tall structure

The government organization like Bank or NHS is tall structure, lots of process needed to go through for a decision, if you were sick, after you have to fill in form, it needed wait for long time to consult the client. Or if you want to open a bank account, it has to wait for around 5 days, they need to run lots of process. For instance, after I arrive here, I had some problems of opening bank account due to my surname, at first the staff in bank said it's fine to put it in the front, but after that they block my account because the superior don't allow it, then I have to wait 5 days again to activate it.

org chart:

org chart:

Flat structure

Google is considered as flat structure, since they had short chain of command, they split into small team for projects, delegated the decision-making to lower level. Manager have to in charge fifty to hundred of people, they giving chance for every employees to share their opinion or idea, so to have faster communication, and more idea can be created.

org chart:

Matrix structure

A bag manufacturer like Channel was divided into the sales and distribution, financial accounting, and production departments. They manufactures a variety of products, for project, they will name in Model 1, Model 2, Model 3, and so on. A person or several persons are selected from different department to communicate with others department. The Salesperson position will report to the Sales and Distribution department, and to the Model 1 department.

org chart: 

Further research on organization design structure

It raised me a question, Apple and Samsung, both private technological organization are the well-known companies of the world, their selling are substantial increase in a short period. So I am interested in how different or any similarity on their structure or management, since they both are the big competitors within the market of mobile phone.

Decision-making can be either centralized or decentralized. If most of the important decisions are made at the top, it’s centralized. If decisions are delegated to lower level, it’s decentralized.

After doing some research, it’s interesting to note that both of them are centralized. There are many advantages and disadvantages. 

Samsung:

Example

“I think elsewhere top managers respect their chief designer’s decision, but at Samsung, they overrule designers and have the final say about what design we go with. That limits our capability. To be better than a good fast follower, Samsung needs a more horizontal culture and to empower designers.”

Reason

It seems their decision-making are done by top manager but not listen to their designer. They just giving command to their staff.


Apple:

Example

Just over a month before the first iPhone was to be released in 2007, the authors report, a frustrated Steve Jobs summoned his senior team.

Steve had been using a prototype iPhone for a few weeks, carrying it around in his pocket. When his lieutenants were assembled, he pulled the prototype out of his pocket and pointed angrily to dozens of scratches on its plastic screen.

People would carry their phones in their pockets, Steve said. They would also carry other things in their pockets–like keys. And those things would scratch the screen.

And then, with Apple just about to ramp up iPhone production, Steve demanded that the iPhone’s screen be replaced with unscratchable glass.

“I want a glass screen,” Steve is quoted as saying. “And I want it perfect in six weeks.”

Reason

Although Steve jobs have already gone, but he is the previous CEO of Apple, I really appreciate of his talent. By the way, the story shows he made the decision of replace the iPhone’s screen with unscratchable glass, and just inform his staff during the meeting.

Centralized

From the above stories of Samsung and Apple, there are only number of supervisors centralizes the control. Direct control and supervision can bring better co-ordination and management control, which had less conflict of authority and duplication of work, it also can reduce costs. And it can provide a consistent strategy across the organization, which easy to implement a common policy. 
However, it shows the staff will not have loyalty to work, just like the designer in Samsung are not satisfy of its structure, it leads to less consistency and responsive.

In this photo, the hand looks like it controlling many subordinates.

My experience

After the lecture, I also reflected of my father’s job, he organized a handbag company in Hong Kong, China and Italy. I’ve been to working trip with him, so I knew a bit how he manages his staff. Since his company is not really big, so there are fewer layer of management, which means short chain of command, and wide span of control, so he act as the boss and manager at the same time, he delegated the authority of decision-making to his staff, and I found the decision can be made very fast, this is essential for work efficient, since his staff don’t have to ask before making decision. For example, the staff don’t need to ask for the shifting date every time, they can decided on their own, it help efficiency the work. And he knows all the staff well, thus he can distribute the work based on personality or what they good at, like if the staff is very careful, putting him to be the accountant is the best choice, different people responsible for different part, higher efficiency can be made. Also, closer relationship can motivated his staff, a harmony-working environment can be maintained .