Academic literature on the topic 'Organisational structure'

This study's primary goal is to investigate all variables that are reported to affect the organisational structure in the same research model. For this purpose, effects of Top Management Team profile variables, including Strategic Decision-Making Style and Strategic Decision-Making Group Size, Environmental Dynamism, Environmental Hostility, Organization Size (both annual turnover and number of employees are taken separately as the indicators of organisation size), Organization’s Age, and Technology (three technological levels: low, medium and high technologies) on the Organizational Structure analysed. Organisation’s Degrees of Centralization and Formalization were taken as organisational structure variables. The research adopted a convenient sampling method and was conducted with 455 managers working in Turkey's different organisations. The Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) approach is used to assess the effects of Top Management Team profile variables, environmental factors, and organisational factors on both the degree of centralisation and formalisation. The results show that TMT Age, Environmental Hostility, Organizational Size (Annual Turnover only), and Technology have a positive and significant effect only on formalisation, while Strategic Decision-Making Group Size, Strategic Decision-Making Style, and Environmental Dynamism on both The Degree of Centralisation and Formalisation. This study also showed that the effects of most of the variables mentioned in the literature as antecedents of the organisational structure could not be determined while all the variables mentioned above are included in the same research model.

Purpose – In many organisations, the alignment between information technology (IT) and business is viewed as an important catalyst for the organisation's effectiveness and efficiency towards achieving a competitive advantage. Yet, a shared understanding between business and IT (the EA included) remains an issue in many organisations. The organisational structure affects the alignment between business and IT units. Conversely, a lack of alignment of both components (IT and business units) impedes organisations' capacity to increase and improve their productivity. Many studies have been conducted in the area of IT, EA and the organisational structure. There is, however, little evidence of work conducted in exploring the interface between organisational structure and EA prior to this study. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A case-study research approach was employed to investigate the impact of organisational structure in the deployment of EA in organisations. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structure technique. The analysis was carried out, using structuration theory. Findings – The magnified data revealed some of unforeseen factors impeding the success of the EA deployment in the organisation. Originality/value – The work is original, and it has not been submitted or published anywhere else.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the influence of a school's operational structure on organisational learning capacity (OLC), and how this either supports or disables any aspiration as a learning organisation.Design/methodology/approachTwo organisational working models are described, one based on same-age structure and another that uses multi-age organisation. These are systemically examined to test for OLC and subsequent potential to develop as learning organisations.FindingsSchools using same-age organisational structure have restricted feedback mechanisms that inhibit their ability to develop OLC. Schools that have adopted multi-age structures have extensive information feedback mechanisms; consequently, they have a higher OLC and the potential to develop as a quasi learning organisation.Practical implicationsThis paper intervenes at a time when interest in the concepts of OLC, transformative learning, and the idea developing schools as learning organisations is increasing. The danger of this development is to repeat the reformational mistakes of the past by failing to reflect on ingrained organisational assumptions. This paper encourages schools to reflect on their organisational strategy.Originality/valueThis paper fills a gap in the research literature by offering a practical analysis of two organisational systems, to show how structure impacts on OLC and aspirations to develop as a learning organisation.

This study focuses on how civil society organisations strategically deploy Web 2.0 technologies for transnational social advocacy and the impact of this technology adoption on civil society organisations' roles, structure, and orientation. The global environmental justice organisation, Greenpeace is used as a case study. Greenpeace advocates for changes in environmental policy and behaviour, has been at the forefront of environmental issues, and has used the mass media as an effective campaigning tool. The key findings that emerged was that social media has become a key ingredient of Greenpeace's campaigning strategy and has been embraced at both a strategic and operational level. The emergence of a collaborative communications paradigm has necessitated a level of organisational introspection evidenced in both changes in the organisation's strategic planning processes and changes to the organisational structure.

Compatibility has been recognised as an important element in the adoption of IT innovations in organisations but as a concept it has been generally limited to technical or functional factors. Compatibility is also significant, however, with regard to value compatibility between the organisation, and the adopted IT innovation. We propose a framework to determine value compatibility analysing the organisation's and information system's structure, practices and culture, and explore the value compatibility of an organisation with its adopted self-service computer-based information system. A case study was conducted to determine the congruence of an organisation's value and IT value compatibility. This study found that there was a high correspondence in the organisational structure and practice dimensions; however, there were organisational culture disparities. The cultural disparities reflected the self-service acceptance and training issues experienced by the case organisation. These findings add insight into the problems experienced with value compatibility and the adoption of the information systems, and show the potential use of the proposed framework in the detection of such problems.

The relation of human resource management to the structural dimension of an organisation has aroused interest of researchers for a long time. The organisational structure creates conditions for HRM, it describes allocation of tasks and responsibilities, determines the applied HRM tools, and as a result, it also decides about possibilities of employability enhancement in an organisation. This paper attempts to answer the question: what is the relationship between certain features of organisational structures and employability of public organisations’ employees. This aim will be achieved by presenting the results of empirical research concerning features of organisational structures and their ties with employability of employees carried out in labour offices, social welfare centres and municipal offices.

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to propose a practical and operable method to identify and fill organisational knowledge gaps during new product development. Design/methodology/approach – From a microscopic view, this paper introduces the tree-shaped organisational knowledge structure to formalise the knowledge gaps and their internal hierarchical relationships. Based on the organisational knowledge structure, organisational knowledge gaps are identified through tree matching algorithm. The tree-edit-distance method is introduced to calculate the similarity between two organisational knowledge structures for filling knowledge gap. Findings – The proposed tree-shaped organisational knowledge structure can represent organisations' knowledge and their hierarchy relationships in a structured format, which is useful for identifying and filling organisational knowledge gaps. Originality/value – The proposed concept of organisational knowledge structure can quantify organisational knowledge. The approach is valuable for strategic decisions regarding new product development. The organisational knowledge gaps identified with this method can provide real-time and accurate guidance for the product development path. More importantly, this method can accelerate the organisational knowledge gap filling process and promote organisational innovation.

The organisational structure of hybrid organisations is affected by multiple institutional influences, considering power flows and organisational processes from the public and private sectors. Given this dynamic, the process of knowledge creation presents some particularities. This article aims to understand the specificities of knowledge creation in large hybrid organisations characterized as large structures with multiple institutional influences, based on a case study of a Brazilian organisation — SESC. Data collection was based on four sources: (i) documental research; (ii) questionnaire with evocative phrases; (iii) structured interviews; and (iv) direct observation. The content analysis technique was used to codify and interpret information. The results offer significant contributions for these hybrid organisations, indicating that they need to access how the bureaucratic model inhibits their knowledge creation, while restricting tacit knowledge sharing, causing the lack of sense of urgency and reducing autonomy and creativity.

Purpose Neo-liberal “reform” has in many countries shifted services across the boundary between the public and private sector. This policy re-opens the question of what structural and managerial differences, if any, differences of ownership make to healthcare providers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between ownership, organisational structure and managerial regime within an elaboration of Donabedian’s reasoning about organisational structures. Using new data from England, it considers: how do the internal managerial regimes of differently owned healthcare providers differ, or not? In what respects did any such differences arise from differences in ownership or for other reasons? Design/methodology/approach An observational systematic qualitative comparison of differently owned providers was the strongest feasible research design. The authors systematically compared a maximum variety (by ownership) sample of community health services; out-of-hours primary care; and hospital planned orthopaedics and ophthalmology providers (n=12 cases). The framework of comparison was the ownership theory mentioned above. Findings The connection between ownership (on the one hand) and organisation structures and managerial regimes (on the other) differed at different organisational levels. Top-level governance structures diverged by organisational ownership and objectives among the case-study organisations. All the case-study organisations irrespective of ownership had hierarchical, bureaucratic structures and managerial regimes for coordinating everyday service production, but to differing extents. In doctor-owned organisations, the doctors’, but not other occupations’, work was controlled and coordinated in a more-or-less democratic, self-governing ways. Research limitations/implications This study was empirically limited to just one sector in one country, although within that sector the case-study organisations were typical of their kinds. It focussed on formal structures, omitting to varying extents other technologies of power and the differences in care processes and patient experiences within differently owned organisations. Practical implications Type of ownership does appear, overall, to make a difference to at least some important aspects of an organisation’s governance structures and managerial regime. For the broader field of health organisational research, these findings highlight the importance of the owners’ agency in explaining organisational change. The findings also call into question the practice of copying managerial techniques (and “fads”) across the public–private boundary. Originality/value Ownership does make important differences to healthcare providers’ top-level governance structures and accountabilities and to work coordination activity, but with different patterns at different organisational levels. These findings have implications for understanding the legitimacy, governance and accountability of healthcare organisations, the distribution and use power within them, and system-wide policy interventions, for instance to improve care coordination and for the correspondingly required foci of healthcare organisational research.

Organizations are fundamentally different from the hierarchical, bureaucratic structures that underlie more traditional organizational theory and research. The paper deals with the fact that culture is omnipotent in shaping the structure of the organisation and structure along with culture is intricately related with the way innovation is managed or implemented in any organisation. This paper is basically a extensive review of papers relating to organisational structure, culture and innovation right from the aspect of how culture shapes structure to how innovation is linked and shaped by both organisational structure and culture. Models by different researchers depicting the relationship between the various aspects of structure culture and innovation are discussed for better understanding.