Organizational Structure

Conceptual Overview

The functionalist and structuralist conception of organizational structure is grounded in Frederick W. Taylor's social engineering and in Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. The case of the scientific method of shoveling in a steelworks, which Taylor described in 1912, shows how an organization's structure can be construed by analyzing a work task crucial for production. Because the load lifted by each shovel stroke varied greatly, in order to optimize and standardize it, Taylor calculated the ratio between the quantity shoveled per day and the corresponding number of shovel strokes, according to technological changes made to the shovel and the material to be shoveled. Thus, the optimum load was defined by combinations of the types of material to be shoveled (dust or coal), the technological characteristics of the shovel (long for dust, shorter for coal), and the number of shovel strokes. Radical organizational changes ensued; the company created (a) a tool room with a sufficient number of different kinds of shovels; (b) a planning office, which scheduled the work of each shoveler, the technology to use, and the location in which the work was to be performed; and (c) a personnel selection office, which recruited workers suited to diversified, and to a certain extent standardized, tasks. Departments, offices, technology, and operational systems became the engineered components of the steelworks' renewed organizational structure.

Weber conducted sociological investigation into a new form of government in society and the modern state: government by offices, or bureaucracy. In the 1950s and 1960s, his theory provided the basis for the empirical study of both organizational structure and the factors determining its specific form. The ideal type of bureaucracy was expressed in variables, such as the five listed by Derek Pugh in 1988: (1) specialization, or the degree of division into specialized roles; (2) standardization, or the presence of standard rules and procedures; (3) formalization, or the use of written instructions and procedures; (4) centralization, or the amount of decision-making authority confined to the top of the organization; and (5) configuration, measured by long versus short command chains and role structures. According to the values of these five variables, the structure of an organization is particularly strong, centralized, and well configured or, conversely, weak and relatively unformalized, compared with other organizations. By calculating the correlations between the variances of structural variables and those of other variables—such as strategy, employment level, technology, or the environment—structural-comparative studies of the early 1970s used causal models to explain the various forms assumed by organizational structure.

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