Organizational Design

There are six elements in an organizational design, or the formal process in which we integrate the information, people and technology of an organization. The first design is work specialization, or the dividing of work activities into separate job tasks. This can also be referred to as the division of labor examples can be found in companies such as Ford, Dell, Apple, Acura and many others where the count on factories to make a product. The second design is chain of command, which is, the line of authority extending from upper levels to lower levels, which clarifies who reports to whom. This is most associated with a military structure where commands come from either a base commander down to the brigade commanders to pass down to battalions and companies. This can also be explained in the structure of management you have employees, supervisors, and managers. Next, is departmentalization or the basis by which jobs are grouped. All fortune five-hundred, “blue collar” companies will have some basis and variation of departmentalization. You will see these departments broke down into categories, such as human resources, finance or accounting, Advertising, Human resources, and sales. Span of control is the number of employees a manager can effectively and effectively manage. In companies the span of control varies from company to company and the size of the company can be a contributing factor of their span of control. For instance, smaller companies with not as much revenue or prestige will have a larger span of control because they cannot afford to have so many higher paying managerial positions where a larger more established company will have many managers in charge of different aspects in the success and control of the employees. Centralization happens when the decision making process is limited and concentrated at the top levels of the organization. This control can either hurt or help a company prosper. It can also be considered the dictatorship of