Question

Organizational structures have changed greatly in the last 50 years. Whereas most organizations were once rigid and centralized, most organizations are now taking advantage of flexible and decentralized structures. 1) How have these new structures affected employee/manager relationships? 2) What impact have they had on organizational strategies? Provide examples to support your point of view.

To ensure immediate feedback, please submit a response between 100 and 1000 words. Essay length alone will not necessarily result in a high or low score.

Answer 1

1. How have these new structures affected employee/manager relationships?

Answer-

When structure of the organisation is rigid and centralised, all the duties and authorities are present only in the hands of managers and employees have to follow their rules.

Flexibility and decentralization in organisation brings decision making power in hands of both employees and managers. New structures has affected employee/manager relationships in following ways –

• Employees feel more independent and empowered. When employees are keen part of decision making process along with their managers they feel motivated and work with more efficiency.
• Communication among managers and employees improves as managers take ideas, information from employees.
• Collaboration between managers and employees increase when they work in this type of structure.

2. What impact have they had on organizational strategies

Answer –

Flexibility and decentralization in organisational structure has great impact on strategies of the organisation. Now the strategies are being achieved more easily. When employees become the part of decision making they give their own ideas to formulate strategies. When things are decided with their involvement in it, they will work on achieving them with more motivation, efficiency and effectiveness.

Under this structure managers delegate their responsibilities to employees and employees are accountable for their work. So, they will always try to perform better in accomplishing all the strategies made.

Example – ABC is a restaurant chain having branches in various states of the country. They earlier followed rigid and centralized organisational structure in which every decision was taken up only by the CEO and owner of the company. Due to this their all food chains were not able to complete customers demand because every branch was running in different area with different tastes and preference of people. So, they adopted flexible and decentralised structure under which top management delegated the responsibilities and authorities to the local chain managers.

With this local managers were able to make changes in menu as per the local tastes of customers. Also, they were able to bring changes in their operations as per customer’s feedback. This also increases the communication among lower and top management. Their relation becomes more cohesive with one another. In this way their strategy of revenue maximisation gets achieved more easily.