Technostructural Intervention

Week 6 - Technostructural Interventions
Restructuring Organisations
Org structures should be designed to fit with at least five factors:
- the environment
- technology
- organisation strategy
- worldwide operations
The Functional Organisation
- departments that are task specialised
- standard pyramid
- specialists are grouped together
- adv ::: promote specialisation of skills and resources
- disadv ::: tend to promote routine tasks with a limited orientation
- best suited for small to medium-sized firms that face relatively stable and certain environments
- also best suited to routine technologies
- also suited to organisational goals that emphasise efficiency and technical quality The Self-Contained Unit Organisation
- group organisations activities on the basis of products, services, customers or geography
- the org'n needs to be relatively large to support the duplication of resources assigned to the units
- each unit is designed to fit a particular niche; therefore the structure adapts well to uncertain conditions
- adv ::: allows diversification, ensures accountability by dept mgrs, heightens dept cohesion
- disadv ::: limits career advancement
The Matrix Organisation
- Two-boss managers who need to both achieve technical sophistication and meet customer expectations
- Performance management systems get input from both functional and project bosses
- Positive ::: allow multiple orientations
- Negative ::: heavy managerial costs and support
- Conditions o There must be outside pressures for a dual focus o Pressures for high information-processing capacity o Pressure for shared resources
Processed-Based Structures
- Multidisciplinary teams are formed around core processes
- Few hierarchical levels
- Particularly appropriate for highly uncertain environments
- Enable organisations to manage non-routine technologies and to coordinate workflows that are highly interdependent.
- Major disadvantage ::: difficulty of