Organizational Structure

An organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. Managers should address seven key elements when designing the structure: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization, formalization, and boundary spanning. Structure impacts organizational behavior and performance.
Work specialization describes the degree to which activities are divided into separate jobs. The essence of work specialization is to divide a job into several steps, each completed by a separate individual. Individuals specialize in doing part of an activity rather than the entirety. Specialization makes efficient use of employees’ skills and even successfully improving them through repetition. Less time is spent changing tasks, putting away tools and equipment from a prior step, and getting ready for another.
By the 1960s, disadvantages began to surface in the form of boredom, fatigue, stress, low productivity, inferior quality, increased absenteeism, and high turnover, which more than offset the economic advantages. Managers could increase productivity now by enlarging, rather than narrowing, the scope of job activities. Giving employees a variety of activities to do often achieved significantly higher output, with increased employee satisfaction.
Most managers today recognize the economies that specialization provides in certain jobs and the problems when it’s carried too far. Wherever job roles can be broken down into specific tasks or projects, specialization is possible. Specialization may still have advantages particularly for job sharing and part-time work.