Mintzbergs Five Types of Organizational Structure - Coursework Example

Mintzberg Theory of Management Essay Course Code Student Name Date of Submission Mintzberg’s five types of organizational structure Henry Mintzberg suggests that organizations can be differentiated using three major dimensions. These dimensions include; the fundamental part of the organization which is the part that determined success or failure of the organization, the major coordinating mechanism which is the major means that organization applies when coordinating the business activities, and form of decentralization applied which is the level to which an organization involves the employees during the process of decision making (Mintzberg, 1992). Using these three major dimensions, Mintzberg proposes that the strategy adopted by an organization and the extent to which it practices the strategy results to five types of organizational structures that include; machine, innovation, entrepreneurial, professional and divisionalised form. Entrepreneurial The entrepreneurial, also known as the simple structure is driven by entrepreneurial-minded individuals. The structure uses direct supervision and applies both vertical and horizontal centralization. Examples of simple structure are startup companies managed by the founders, small elementary schools and medium sized retail stores (Mintzberg, 1992). The organization structure consists of one top manager, monitoring and managing few workers. The organization needs a small support staff and employee often performs overlapping tasks. Common strengths within this type of organizational structure include forward thinking ideals, enthusiasm and energy. The structure is also characterized with various drawbacks and limitations such as poor discipline, inefficiency and management control. Despite having drawbacks, this organizational structure has the ability to adapt rapidly to environmental changes. Machine Bureaucracy According to Mintzberg, a highly bureaucratic organization is like a machine. Mintzberge referred to these organizations as machines because techno structure is the organization’s integral part, applies standardization of work processes and uses the limited horizontal decentralization. These organizational structures are characterized with what Weber (Cox, 2010) terms as ideal bureaucracy. There is a high level of work specialization and formalization, and centralized decisions. Other characteristics of this organizational structure are that there exist many levels in the command chain from the organization’s top management to the bottom. The support staff and techno structure is also large. Examples of machine bureaucracy include government agencies and steel companies. The environment of these organizations is stable and the main aim is the achievement of internal efficiency (Mintzberg, 1992). While the strengths of such organizations lies on the structure, stability and durability, these organizations have limited openness to adapt to new perspectives and there is frequent occurrence of inefficiencies due to the bureaucratic process. Professional bureaucracy Although the professional organizational structure is similar to machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy has the operating core as its major part. The organization used skills standardization as its major mechanism of coordination, and applies both horizontal and vertical type of decentralization. The structure is characterized with high levels of professionalism and competent employees who drive the core business of the organization. As Mintzberg (1992) argues, the organization is formalized but at the same time, decentralized to provide the professional with autonomy. In this structure, the top management is small, with few middle level managers. The size of techno-structure is generally smaller. The major function of the support staff it to provide critical clerical and maintenance support for the professionals. The main objective of this type of organizational structure is to innovate and provide services that are of high quality. Operating in a complex but steady environment, the size professional bureaucracy ranges from large to small size. This structure often faces coordination problems. An example of this type of organization includes large law firms, universities and hospitals. These organizations provide complex services through professionals that are highly trained in an atmosphere characterized with structural looseness (Mintzberg, 1992). University professors perform their roles in classroom settings, isolated from colleagues and superiors but maintain contact with their students. Moreover, they are highly trained professionals that give the students information within their own style of teaching. Specifically, the professionals have specialized skills and work autonomy, and make more decentralized decision as compared to the machinery bureaucracy. Divisionalized form The divisionalised organizational structure is common in large corporations that have many business units and product lines. The organization used standardization of output as the major mechanism of coordination. In most cases, the organization is divided into divisions to promote a particular type of management of the divisions; the divisions have little coordination with one another with the personnel at the corporate-level providing some coordination. Each division tends to be similar to the machine bureaucracy (Mintzberg, 1992). However, the techno-structure is at the headquarters and provides services to all the units. This type of structure is common on large corporations. Taking an example of a large corporation, the organization may locate its divisions in various locations, commonly known as branches, within a country. The divisions have managers that oversee the operations. The managers are responsible and accountable for the activities within their divisions. These managers make reports that are submitted to the top management at the corporate headquarter. Innovative/adhocracy The innovative, also called adhocracy organizational structure allows for a cutting-edge leadership. The support staff is the key part in this structure and uses mutual adjustment as its coordination mechanism. This organizational structure is low in decentralization and formalization. Moreover, there is a smaller techno-structure as the technical specialists are involved in the operative core of the organization. The size of the support staff is large to support the organization’s complex structure. Adhocracies undertake non routine tasks which use sophisticated technology. These organizations are driven with the primary goal of being innovative and rapid adaptation to the changing environments (Mintzberg, 1992). Typically, these organizations are medium in size, adaptable, are utilizes resources efficiently. This type of structure is commonly found in new companies or with companies who seek innovative managers. An example of this type of organizational structure is the electronic industry and research and development firms. The organization is characterized by centralized decision making which is a key trait of the managers. Moreover, the managers are free to make their own judgment so long as they consider efficiency. The structure experiences various drawbacks such as potential leadership conflict and uncertainty over authority. These draw backs occurs due to the freedom of the managers to make their own judgment without following particular procedure. In which way does Mintzberg’s work advance our understanding beyond scientific management? Scientific management, commonly referred to as Taylorism is a management theory that analysed workflows. The main objective of scientific management is the achievement of economic efficiency, particularly labour productivity and (Taylor, 2007). Based on the work of Taylor, scientific management emphasizes on standardization of work through division of labour. According to Taylor, the role of factory management is to determine the most suitable way for workmen to the job, to provide proper working tools training, and to provide incentives to the workers that shows good performance. Taylor broke down jobs into individual motions and analysed the motions to determine those that were essential and timed the workmen. Taylor eliminates unnecessary motions making the workforce to be productive. Although scientific management improves productivity and have significant impact on industries, it increases work monotony. Scientific management do not consider skill variety identity of tasks, autonomy and feedback (Taylor, 2007). In his argument, Taylor recognized the inclination to look for a ‘great man’ to manage the organization where every detail of managing the organization is left to him. In Taylor’s view, the success of an organization depends on the ability of the man in authority. However, Taylor acknowledges that this scenario creates organizational inefficiency. As a result, he introduced the principles of management to reduce and eliminate the inefficiencies. After years of experimentation to determine the optimal work methods, Taylor proposed four major principles of scientific management. The first principle is replacing the over the thumb management methods with the scientific way of managing tasks. The second principle involves selecting, training, and developing employee rather leaving then to learn by themselves. The third principle involves ensuring the methods that are scientifically developed are being follows. The last principle is making sure that manager apply the principles of scientific management when planning the work. The foundation of Taylor’s argument is based on the argument that management is a science that offers solutions to management dilemma. According to Taylor, making changes in the organizational culture requires the commitment of the management, gradual implementation and education of the desired change (Taylor, 2007). This is because the problem of change involves the complete revolution of the workmen attitudes and habits of the individual in the management positions. For this reason, managers who views management as a science believes that there are specific management principles for particular managerial issues. When faced with poor employee performance, the manager would follow general management principle to deal with the situation. The manager is also likely to implement training programs to determine effective course of action and pay less attention to social and political factors that are connected with the situation. Various management theories came up to disagree with the scientific way of management. An example of this theory includes the contingency theory that is founded on the argument that there is no one best way to lead an organization. The manner in which an organization is led depends upon the situation at hand. The internal and external constraints assist in determining the best course of action. Developed by Fiedler, the contingency theory considers three variables to explain organizational leadership (Cox, 2010). These variable include; how well the employee accept the reader, the extent to which jobs are described in details, and that authority possesses by the leader through his position in the organization. Fiedler’s contingency theory states that the internal and external factors influence the ideal organizational structure. The internal and external factors include ability of an organization to adapt to changes, style of leadership, applied technology, and type of leadership. Mintzberg argument on management views management beyond scientific aspect. Mintzberg view of management is based on the foundation that management is an art. According to Mintzberg, managers rely on the social and political environment that surrounds an issue in management. He goes ahead to argue that managers apply their own knowledge of a situation rather than using generic management rules to identify a course of action. For instance, in the case where a manger notices that an employee’s performance is poor, the manager would use his experience and judgement when looking into the issue. The manager will not generate a standard respond to a particular issue (Mintzberg, 2009). Rather, the manger would contemplate including the social and political factors and take different actions depending on the context of the issue. Henry Mintzberge work on management is based on an understanding that management is an art. Mintzberge also observes that most managers do not sit their work tables, evaluating, brainstorming, and making decisions without interruption. As Mintzberge (2003) noted, most managers are engaged in disjointed responsibilities with constant interruptions that give then insufficient time and opportunities to respond to managerial problems and issues. As Mintzberge argues, strategy making and management must function beyond the boxes, to encourage the informal learning which enhances the creation of new perspectives and new combinations. The informal learning give rise to emergent strategies that managers can use to manage the workforce as well as the organization. Most serious organizational changes are often discouraged by the planning’s failure to be successful. It is because of the failure that scientific management has promoted strategies that are extrapolated from the past. Mintzberg (2003) ascertains that the activities of a manager are featured by brevity, discontinuity, and variety that are strongly concerned with action. Mintzberg includes various management approach aspects from the systems approach; Koontz process approach and Fayol’s normative framework. According to Mintzberg, scientific management is not founded on strategic thinking but rather, is an impediment to strategic thinking. Once a manger understands this, he can avoid costly misfortunes that may be caused by using the formal techniques to deal with organizational problems, without judgement and intuition, to solving of problems. Managers should be able to implement strategies that involve allocation of resources even though the organization has not recognized it as its strategy. References Cox, F. (2010). Art & science: pain series: #1. Basic principles of pain management: assessment and intervention. Nursing Standard, 25(1), 36-39. Mintzberg, H 2003, 'The manager's job: folklore and fact', Harvard Business Review, 53, 4, pp. 49-61. Mintzberg, H. (1992). Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. (2009). Tracking strategies: Toward a general theory of strategy formation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Taylor, F. W. (2007). Principles of Scientific Management. Bloomsbury Business Library - Management Library, 88. Read More