The
study of organizations includes a focus on optimizing organizational structure. According to management science, most human
organizations fall roughly into four types:
Pyramids or hierarchies: A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with
a leader
who leads other individual members of the organization. This arrangement is
often associated with bureaucracy. These structures are formed on the basis
that there are enough people under the leader to give him support. Just as one
would imagine a real pyramid, if there are not enough stone blocks to hold up
the higher ones, gravity would irrevocably bring down the monumental structure.
So one can imagine that if the leader does not have the support of his subordinates,
the entire structure will collapse. Hierarchies were satirized in The
Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced hierarchiology
and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his
level of incompetence."
Committees or juries: These consist of a group of peers who decide as a
group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is
that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead
further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury
come to a decision. In common law countries, legal juries render decisions of
guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic
contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee
functions like a jury. In the Middle Ages, juries in continental Europe were
used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables.
Matrix organization: This organizational type assigns each worker two
bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional"
and assures that each type of expert in the organization is well-trained, and
measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction
is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts.
Projects might be organized by products, regions, customer types, or some other
schema.
Ecologies: This
organization has intense competition. Bad parts of the organization starve. Good
ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a
tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired.Companies who utilize
this organization type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is
also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do
not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous.