What Is Organizational Structure?
Completion requirements
Read this article for an overview of why a company might select different organizational structures. You will review the elements of an organizational structure, including departmentalization, the chain of command, and the span of control.
What is Organizational Structure?
Learning Outcomes
- Discuss the elements of organizational structure
A worker reports to a manager. A manager reports to a director, a director reports to a vice president, and a vice president reports to a C-level senior leader, like a chief executive officer or a chief administrative officer. If you've ever worked in
a corporate setting, you're likely to recognize this as the basic set of layers of an organization's structure.
Organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. The structure of an organization usually features six different elements:
- Work specialization
- Departmentalization
- Chain of command
- Span of control
- Centralization and decentralization
- Formalization
Now that we understand just what organizational structure is, let's take a look at each one of its elements, so we can better understand how organizations choose to structure themselves to maximize productivity.
Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-organizationalbehavior/chapter/what-is-organizational-structure/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.