This lecture is useful for the student to make them understand about the organizational structure which is a system that outlines how certain activities ( flow of information, roles, command, responsibilities, etc.) are directed in order to achieve the goals of an organization between the various hierarchy and levels

1. Organizational Structure and
Communication Behaviour
B. P. Singh, Principal Scientist
Division of Extension Education
ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute
Izatnagar- 243 122

2. Organizational structure
refers to the way in which an organization’s activities are divided,
organized and coordinated to provide a stable
framework that helps organization members to
work together to achieve organizational goals.

3. has described organization in a five step to facilitate the
organizational structure as:
1.List the work that needs to be done to accomplish organization goals.
Example: A dairy farm’s goal is to increase milk
productivity at farm. It need:
2.Divide the total work load into tasks that can logically and comfortably
be performed by individuals or groups.
division of work,
job specialization
3.Departmentalization :The grouping of employees and tasks /activities is referred to as
departmentalization or similar and logically activities connected
together
4.Coordination : Integration of the activities of the separate parts of an
organization to accomplish organizational goals
5. Monitor :Monitor the organizational structure effectiveness and make
adjustment as needed.

4. Organizational chart
is a diagram of an organization’s structure, showing the functions,
departments, or positions of the organization and how they are related. In
an organization’s chart, the individual boxes represent the division of work
and the way in which tasks are departmentalized. These boxes are then
arranged in levels that represent the management hierarchy and chain of
command.
Organizational chart

5. 1. Tall Organizational Structure:
Characterized by a narrow span of
management and many hierarchical
levels. A long chain of commands slows
decision making which is a
disadvantage in a rapidly changing
environment.
2. Flat Organizational Structure:
In this, “Chain of Command” from top to
bottom is short and the “span of control is
wide”. Due to the small number of
management layers, flat organisations are
often small organisations. So, it
Characterized by a wide span of
management and few hierarchy levels.
Decision making is fast.
Span of control- defined as the number of
subordinates who report directly to a
particular manager. On this basis there are
two type of structure

6. Formal organizational structure:
It depicts the organizational structure to show who is responsible for certain
tasks.
Informal organizational structure:
It is undocumented and officially unrecognized relationship among
members of an organization that inevitably emerge out of the personal
and group needs of employees.
The interpersonal relationship in this, are referred as the dotted lines
on the chart.
Eg. during work, one employee may turn to another for help rather
than going through a manager. Chester Barnard said, informal
relationship among employees help in satisfying their social needs and
get things done.

7. TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
An organizations department can be formally
structured in three ways: By function, By
products/ market, or in matrix form
1.Functional Organizations: Organizations
by function brings together in one department
everyone engaged in one activity or several
activities. Eg. an organization divided by
function by separate manufacturing,
marketing and sale department.
1. It is used mainly by smaller firms , it makes
efficient use of specialized resources.
2. It makes supervision easier.
3. It makes easier to mobilize specialized skills
and bring them to where they are most
needed.
Fin./Acct.
Manufacturing Marketing Logistics
International
Sales
R & D
HQ
Functional Structure
w/ International Sales Division

8. DISADVANTAGE OF FUNCTIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
It becomes more difficult to get quick decisions/action on
a problem because functional manager have to
report to central headquarter and may have to wait
a long time before a request for help is acted on.
It is often difficult to determine accountability and judge
performance in a functional structure. If a new
product fail, who is to blame - research and development,
production or marketing?
Coordinating the function of members of the entire
organization may become a problem for top managers.

9. A product organizational structure
creates a structure centered on the company's
product lines. These organizations will
separate out their products by group, such as
apparel, appliances, food or electronics. This
helps owners and managers run their
operations more efficiently
It referred to as organization of a company into
division that brings together all those involved
with a certain type of product or market.
A Product organization can follow one
of the three pattern:
Division by products: Setting up
product divisions is logical when each product
requires different manufacturing
technology and marketing methods.
Division by geography: Service,
financial and other non-manufacturing firm use
geographic division.
Division by customer: A division sells
most or all of its products to a particular
customer.
2. Product or Market Organizations:
Mfg. Mkt. R&D
Product A
Mfg. Mkt. R&D
Product B
Mfg. Mkt. R&D
Product C
HQ
Product Division Structure
For Product-diversified Firms

10. ADVANTAGE
 All the activities, skills and expertise required
to produce and market particular
products are grouped in one place under a
single head, a whole job can be more easily
coordinated and high work performance
maintained.
 Both the quality and speed of decision making
are enhanced because decisions made
at the divisional level are closer to the scene of
action.
Advantage of Product or Market Organizations

11. 3. MATRIX ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE
 It contains teams of people created from
various sections of the business. These
teams will be created for the purposes of a
specific project and will be led by a project
manager. Often the team will only exist for
the duration of the project and matrix
structures are usually deployed to develop
new products and services. The matrix
structure is often an efficient means for
bringing together the diverse specialized
skills required to solve a complex problem.
Problems of coordination- are minimized
here because of important personnel for a
project work together as a group.
Eg. - NAIP
R&D
US
Eur
Mexico
Malaysia
Marketing Manufacturing
Mexico
HQ
U.S.
R&D
Logistics
Integrated
Functions
Marketing
Germany
Drivetrain
Marketing
US
Body/
Frame
Marketing
Malaysia
Glass/
Plastic
Marketing
Mexico
Final
Assembly
HQ
Matrix Structure (B)
Matrix Structure (A)

12.  By working together, people come to understand the
demands faced by those who have different areas of
responsibility.
 Unnecessary duplication is avoided.
 Individuals can be chosen according to the needs of
the project.
 Individuals can be chosen according to the needs of
the project.
 The use of a project team which is dynamic and able to
view problems in a different way as specialists have
been brought together in a new environment.
Advantage of matrix organization

13.  Every employee of the organization is not adapted well to a
matrix system. To be effective, team members must have
good interpersonal skills and be flexible and cooperative.
 If teams have a lot of independence can be difficult to monitor.
 Morale of employee can be adversely affected when
personnel are rearranged once projects are completed and
new ones begun.
 If hierarchy of authority are not firmly established and
effectively communicated, there is the danger, according to
some analyst, that conflicting directives and ill- defined
responsibilities will plunge certain manager into a state of
virtual chaos.
 Costs can be increased if more managers (ie project
managers) are created through the use of project teams.
Disadvantage of matrix organization

14. An organization structure is made up of three components. First is
complexity : can be broken down into three parts i.e., horizontal, vertical
and spatial differentiation
 It refer to the degree of horizontal
separation between unit. It is the degree
of differentiation between unit based on
the orientation of members, nature of the
task they performed, their education and
training. OR
• degree to which tasks are divided into
distinct homogeneous groups
– function-wise
– geographic-wise
– product-wise
– production stage-wise
 Larger the number of different occupation
within an organization that require
specialized knowledge and skill, the more
horizontally complex that organization is.
Horizontal differentiation
Prod 1 Prod 2 Prod 3 Prod 4
CEO
Mkt Mfg Finance R&D Logistics
CEO

15. ♥ It refer to the depth of the organizational
hierarchy .
♥ It shows the number of levels within the
organization
♥ Differentiation increase as the number of
hierarchical level in organization increase.
♥ The more level that exist between top
management and operation, then greater
the potentials for communication distortion.
♥ The more difficult it is to coordinate the
decision of managerial personnels.
Vertical Differentiation
Sr. VP
VP
Asst. VP Asst. VP
Asst. Branch Mgr
Branch Mgr. Branch Mgr.
Asst. VP
VP VP
Sr. VP
EVP EVP EVP
CEO

16.  it is the degree to which the location of an organization
facilities and personnel are geographical dispersed, since
organizations can perform some activities with the some
horizontal and vertical management in multiple location.
OR
 Degree to which activities are located in different areas
Spatial Differentiation
Finance R&D Legal
Support
US
Prod 1
Mfg.
Pacific
Prod 2
Mfg
Eur.
HQ

17. Simple structure: It is low in complexity, has little formalization (degree to which job
within the organization are standardized) and has authority centralized in a single
person.
• FORMALIZATION: It referred to as Degree to which rules, procedure, lines of
authority/responsibility are enunciated or specified
• More formality: eliminates confusion and uncertainty, limits creativity
and innovation
• Less formality: imbues flexibility, creative solutions.
In this, decision making is basically informal- all important decision are centralized in
the hand of the senior executive.
Information flow rapidly. There are five conditions in simple structure:
 In small organization, repetitive work is less,
 Informal communication is convenient.
 When the environment is rapidly changing but easily comprehensible.
 When the organization face hostility.
Why do Structure Differ : They differ in many types

18. •Bureaucratic structure: Characterized by
 red tapism,
division of labour,
paper shuffling,
rigid application of rule,
redundancy of effort,
well defined authority,
hierarchy,
 high formalization,
 impersonal nature,
 employment decision based on merit,
 career track for employees and communication is formal.
. It is a very efficient way of organizing certain task.
Bureaucratic structure:

19. Functional structure: It is mostly prevalent in case of single product
manufecturing organization. A distinguised feature of the functional structure is
that similar and related occupational specilization are grouped together such
as group under a functional head who report to a central headquarter.
Product structure: An organization can structure around product lines. The
major advantage to the product form is accountability. The product manager is
responsible for all facts surroundings the products. Instead of the marketing
manager having 15 different products lines to oversee, each product structure
will have its own marketing manager with sole responsibility for marketing their
division products. In this way, product control is centralized with the product
manager. Its best example is Amul, wherein each product has its separate unit.
Adochratic structure: The term adhocracy refers to flexible, adaptive,
responsive system organized around a unique problem to be solved by groups
of relative stranger with diverse professional skills. In terms of structural
dimension, adhocracy would be characterized as having moderate to low
complexity, low formalization and decentralized decision making. The adhocracy
may be temporary project group, a task force or a committee.
Adochratic structure
Product structure
Functional structure

20. Formal and informal organizational
structure:
Organization chart are useful for showing the formal organizational structure and
who is responsible for certain tasks.
Informal organizational structure
is undocumented and officially unrecognized relationship between member of
an organization that inevitably emerge out of the personal and group needs of
employee. These interpersonal relationship are often referred to as the
dotted line on the organizational chart.

21. Organizational communication is: people working together to achieve
individual or collective goals. People can relate to each other only through some
form of communication. The survival of an organization depends on individuals
and groups who are able to maintain among themselves effective and continuing
relationships.
The structure of an organization is determined in part by the network of
channels or paths along which information must flow between members or
subunits. The communication behaviours of employees in organization has been
explained here:
Communication Behaviour in Organization
Types of Communication Flow in Organization
Formal
Informal

22. The messages that move along its prescribed and regulated
pathways are known as formal communication. The content of these
messages concern the work and the other related activities of the
organization. Formal communications may be verbal, nonverbal, or written
and may take the form of letters, telephone calls, teletype or radio messages,
computer printouts.
As a general rule, all formal communications are recorded and filed and
become a part of the organization's records. Some examples of formal
communication include work orders, accounting records and reports,
inventory and sales reports, policy statements, job descriptions, and work-
method protocols.
Formal communication may sometimes move horizontally across parallel
lines of authority.
Formal Communication

23. The network of formal communication in an organization serves several
purposes:
Formal Communication
1. it defines the routes over which all important messages will
travel.
2. it provides a road map for senders and receivers of
information to follow.
3. it indicates the route to those who will act and also to those
who must be kept informed of planned action, work in
progress and work results.
4. it provides a place for the storage of information that may
be required for planning, operations, and control.
5. it delineates an orderly system for superiors and
subordinates to keep each other informed.

24. The formal communication channels and procedures provide structural
guidelines for sending, receiving, and recording messages but formal
communications fall short of meeting all the needs of organizational
communication.
The gap between the needs of the formal system and those of the total
system is bridged by an informal communication system. This consists of a
large number of messages, bits of information, opinion, and expression of
feeling among people and groups over paths and by means that are chosen for
convenience and necessity rather than for propriety or in conformity with
formal communication patterns.
It is safe to say, that without informal messages, work would not be
accomplished, and that the organization itself, made up of psychological,
social, economic, and technological needs, could not continue to function.
Leon Festinger, reported that there are three general sources of pressure
that generate informal communication in human groups.
Informal Communication

25. WHY?
1. People need to share with superiors and others their hopes and
ambitions in satisfaction of needs for achievement, affiliation,
and power. In Festinger's terms, these communications arise from
forces to "locomote" within a group.
2. People need to express emotions such as joy, anger, hostility, and
the like as a means of "blowing off steam.“
3. A fourth source of informal communication could be added and is
related to the rigidity of the formal bureaucratic structure: the need to
bypass "official channels" for the sake of expediency in getting and
giving information about performance on the job.
Much information is exchanged unofficially in the
organization