What Is the Typical Organizational Structure for a Small Business?

The concept of corporate organizational structure is broad and narrow. The narrow organizational structure refers to the fixed arrangement of various departments and levels within the organization formed by the organizational design under the guidance of organizational theory in order to achieve the goals of the organization, that is, the internal organization of the organization. The generalized organizational structure includes, in addition to the narrow organizational structure, the types of interrelationships between organizations, such as specialized collaborations, economic unions, and enterprise groups.

Enterprise organizational structure

U-shaped organizational structure

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, a large-scale western company generally adopted a functional structure that divides departments by function, that is, a U-shaped structure. The characteristic is that the enterprise is divided into several departments according to functions (such as production, sales, development, etc.). The independence of each department is very small, and they are directly managed by the senior leadership of the enterprise, that is, the enterprise implements centralized control and unified command. The U-shaped structure maintains the advantages of centralized and unified command in a straight line system, and absorbs

Organizational structure management and organizational reengineering work are of extraordinary significance. The allusion that "the three monks have no water to eat" is well known. There are also rumors about stories like "Three Stinkmakers, Better Than Zhuge Liang." In fact, this is the effect of organizational structure management. Deciding whether an enterprise is excellent and longevity does not depend on how great the company's leaders are. The most important thing is to see if the organizational structure of the company allows ordinary employees to create great performance through extraordinary efforts: otherwise it will make excellent Of employees are just doing ordinary business. So, what caused these two distinctly different combinations? Or, why is it that "the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts", or vice versa? The fundamental reason lies in the different organizational structures and the different ways in which the elements are grouped together, which results in differences in the coordination or synergy between the elements.

The organizational structure is well managed and can form a converging and magnifying effect of overall strength. Otherwise, it will be easy for a "scatter of sand" and even a "worry fight" situation where the forces cancel each other out. Perhaps based on this effect, people often refer to "organization" as the "fourth factor" that places equal emphasis on the three major factors of production: human, finance and material. It is also in this sense that Carnegie, the American steel king, said: "Take away all my factories, equipment, markets, and funds, but as long as the company's people are still there, the organization is still, then, four years later I will still be a steel king. "From this, it is not difficult to see the importance of organizational structure management and organizational work.

In recent years, attention to corporate competitive advantage has focused on the internal structure and behavior of organizations. Some research institutions have suggested that the core of a company's competitiveness and competitive advantage is not dependent on having specific organizational resources or capabilities, which may often be imitated or purchased by other companies. Burt Consulting's research also points out that competitive advantage comes from the internal operating mechanism of the organization, which ensures that different aspects of the company's operations are coordinated, such as its market scope, its skills, resources and procedures. An enterprise can be viewed as a system in which its constituent elements are interdependent, and all elements must be coordinated in the market. It is the complex and vague complementary relationship of these elements and the ability of the organization to coordinate strategic goals and the extent of implementation, which gives the company some special and difficult to imitate the ability and forms the source of organizational competitive advantage. ^[1]

(1) See if the company's goals have been formulated in recent years and whether they have been achieved on schedule. If not, are there any irresistible policies, markets, and environmental reasons? If this reason also exists, it is also necessary to analyze the behavior of the company in terms of crisis event response, development forecast analysis, opportunity and risk research.

(2) Look at the formulation and implementation of corporate development strategies.

(3) Look at the differences between the requirements of the new strategy for organizational structure functions and the historical performance of the corresponding functions of the organizational structure.

(4) Look at the level of corporate customer satisfaction.

Straight

In the sense of management, the organizational structure is essentially a power-responsibility relationship structure. A modern and sound organization generally includes the following relationship subsystems:

The decision-making subsystem The organization's leadership system and decision-making bodies at all levels and their decision makers form the decision-making subsystem. Decision-making bodies and decision-makers at all levels are the core of organizational decision-making.

Command subsystem The command subsystem is the command center for organizing activities. In each functional unit or department, its person in charge or executive head and its members form a vertical system. The chief task of the executive head is to implement the decisions of the decision-making body, and he is responsible for directing the activities of the organization to ensure that they are carried out smoothly and effectively. The design of the command subsystem should be based on the actual situation of the organization, reasonably determine the management level, and delegate the command authority level by level based on the principle of authorization, establish a multi-level and authoritative command system to exercise unified command of the organization's various activities.

Staff-Functional Subsystem Staff-Functional Subsystem is a horizontally-formed system composed of staff or functional departments. Each staff or functional department is the staff and assistant of the executive head, and is responsible for a certain aspect of business activities. When designing the staff-function subsystem, according to the actual needs and in accordance with the principle of professional division of labor, set up the necessary staff or functional agencies, and specify their scope of duties and work requirements to ensure the effective implementation of various aspects of management work.

The decision center of the execution subsystem, supervision subsystem, and feedback subsystem determines the overall policy of the organization. The command center is the starting point for implementing the plan, and the execution subsystem, supervision subsystem, and feedback subsystem are the institutions that enable the plan to be implemented without errors. .

The command center issued an instruction to the executing agency on the one hand and to the supervisory agency at the same time to let it supervise the implementation. After processing the information system, the feedback mechanism compares the gap between the effect and the instruction and returns to the command center. In this way, the command center can issue new instructions according to the situation.

The executing agency must implement the command of the command center without any errors. To ensure this, there should be a monitoring agency to supervise the implementation, and the feedback subsystem reflects the effect of implementation. The execution subsystem, the supervision subsystem, and the feedback subsystem must be independent of each other and cannot be unified.