Question

All else being equal, would you prefer to work in a tall or flat organization? Why? Which one do you think is best: a narrow span of control, or a wide span of control? How does the concept of span of control relate to tall/flat organizations? Justify your reasoning.

Answer 1

COMPARISON OF TALL OR FLAT ORGANIZATION :

Organizational culture is a common perception held by the organization’s members; a system of shared meaning. The culture that I shall prefer in an Organization would be that of to work in a flat organization. This shall be so because it enables more approachability across all the levels of Management thereby creating a congenial atmosphere to work in. The seniors in the flat organizations are friendly to the subordinates and hence the employees are more liberal to use innovation at work. Further, in such Organizations, employees are in fact highly motivated set of personnel as the interference of the management to their activities is very minimal. Flat organizations further helps in bridging the gap between the employee’s independence in question to that of the customer’s expectations from the company in the sense that employees attempt in full-spirit to meet the customer-service standards thereby keeping the customer base happy and satisfied with the service delivery of the Organization owing to the Bossless culture. It also facilitates the new hired employees with the opportunity to understand the Organization better in its own free way and not based upon what type of information the management wants to share. In addition, it makes the employees more responsible and accountable towards their activities as they are the boss and not the management who would take any active interest in running the organization. The employees do the needful thereby giving them more confidence to undertake innovative and challenging activities. It replaces the work teams with circles that an employee can join based upon the activity of their interest and the same is therefore not imposed to them by the management thereby ensuring more efficiency in the performances. Therefore, Flat organizations promote personal freedom for the employees at workplace.

NARROW SPAN OR WIDE SPAN OF CONTROL :

Span of control is one of the important principles of Administrative management as introduced by Henry Fayol. Span of control means the degree of activity that an individual or superior can manage below him in an Organization. Narrow span of control means the number of members that the senior is handling is lesser in strength. In other words, the senior is overseeing lesser subordinates working under him. On the other side, in case of narrow span of control, the senior would have to oversee a larger number of subordinate under him. Accordingly, I believe that narrow span of control is better than that of the wider one. The reason being that it brings more efficiency in the management of the same. It would further help in availing to various innovative and effective ideas in a certain term line, by the team members which eventually motivates them to perform more efficiently as they feel involved and satisfied. Therefore lesser the number of team mates, more is the span of control thus further ensuring its efficiency in performance. Hence in any given organization, narrow span of control is more desirable.