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The Effect of Organizational Structures on Performance

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The Effect of Organizational Structures on Performance
This essay will give the main points of the effect of organizational structures on performance. It will define the term “organizational structure” and present the positive and negative effects of these structures on performance. This essay will address how structures determine procedures and rules by which are regulated human behaviour, its role in determining relationships in hierarchies and the importance of roles and expectations in directing employee behaviour. It will also underline the distinction between formal and informal company structures and discuss different outcomes of bureaucratic structures. Finally it will examine the sustainability of bureaucratic-classical structures in large corporations and the reasons for their existence.

In the early stages of industrialization, the need to plan and administer work was still at the level where it was hardly needed. Once grown, administrative structures expanded and it was thereon necessary to understand the functionality of it. When someone tries to understand the way an organization works, he asks himself three main questions: What? Why? How? That last question is the one that comprises the domain of organization structure. Organizational structure is the way in which the interrelated groups of an organization are constructed in order to make them work together in the sole purpose of achieving organizational goals. From a managerial point of view the main concerns are ensuring effective communication and coordination. The purpose of organization structure is to divide and allocate organizational activities to different categories of workers and to co-ordinate and control theses activities so that they achieve the aims of the organization (Buchanan and Huczynski, 1985, p.461). Organizational structure is present all around us. It matters because it facilitates control, divides responsibilities, enables to achieve tasks and achieve goals. We build on structure even if we are not necessarily aware of it.

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