THE NECESSITY OF HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE FOR AN
ORGANIZATION: A STUDY
MD. ABDUL KABIEO MAHMUD Assistant Professor
(Pharmaceutical Sciences and Management)
Vinayaka Missions Sikkim University
Abstract
An organization is an inclusion of two or more people to work together in the certain
structure, seeking for the particular purpose or purposes as a whole. A hierarchical organization is
an organizational structure where every entity in the organization is subordinate to a single other
entity. The hierarchy usually consists of a singular/group of power at the top with subsequent levels
of power beneath them. The improved coordination among the Hierarchical positions leads to
improved performance which leads the organization to its goal and achievement. Members of
hierarchical organizational structures chiefly communicate with their immediate superior and with
their immediate subordinates. They are committed to the work and the functions. Hierarchies are
also thought to allow information to flow between members more efficiently and for the integration of
this information to occur more easily. The leaders integrate this diverse information and make the
relevant decisions. Their decisions then flow down to each respective hierarchical level and get
implemented according to leaders’ plans. Thus Hierarchical apex body have to take part in decision
Keywords:
Organization, Hierarchy, Coordination, Commitment, decision making, motivation, implementation
Goal and Achievement,
Introduction
In the view of various authors, the organization can be categorized as an establishment of commitment, mandates, distribution of functions and subordination between members of organization. It was defined very similarly by Stoner et al. (2005), Little (2012) claiming that this was a process during which work is divided, the structural units, and hierarchy are formed, mechanisms for coordination of activity are created. An organization is an inclusion of two or more people to work together in the certain structure, seeking for the particular purpose or purposes as a whole.1
B. Neverauskas and J. Rastenis (2001) claims that during the process of hierarchical organization the companies create and further improve the structures, which enable employee to work along and effectively by achieving company‟s goals, and have two main aspects: the reconciliation of mandates and arrangement of organization departments.2
Hierarchy is a model of many organizational structure levels, on top of which is a top-level manager (or managers) responsible for all policy and strategic activities of the organization; others, the lower-level managers, are located on different lower levels of organizational management. It‟s a creation of a certain number of management levels. Organizational hierarchy, or a chain of command followed with regards to people of authority and process of services.3 A hierarchical organization is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a form of a hierarchy. In an organization, the hierarchy usually consists of a singular/group of power at the top with subsequent levels of power beneath them. This is the dominant mode of organization among large organizations; most corporations, governments, and organized religions are hierarchical organizations with different levels of management, power or authority. For example, the broad, top-level overview of the general organization of the Catholic Church consists of the Pope, then the Cardinals, then the Archbishops, and so on.4
Some component of Organizational Hierarchy.5
The division of labor – Splitting a complex task is into components that employees are responsible not for the entire task, but for the different activities. This is the optimal distribution of the whole work into separate parts and identification of specific performers.
Formation of structural units is a grouping of the similar and logically related operating activities into the structural element. In order to see how the work is distributed, leaders create
1 Bakanauskas A. and others. Management of Organizations. – Lithuania: Vytautas Magnus University 2011. – 432 p. -
ISBN 978-9955-12-738-3
2
Butkus F. B. Management for Everyone. - Vilnius: Eugrimas, 2008. – 165 p. – ISBN 978-9955-790-17-4
3 http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/functions-organizational-structure-2141.html 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_organization
the organizational schemes of the management structures. This is a determination of composition and connection between employees and departments.
Coordination – a process of combining the organization‟s goals and the inevitable specialization, which comes with the division of labor and formation of chains. Coordination refers to the establishment of communication channels between people who are executing different work. Coordination is intended to correct the executors‟ actions, which do not comply with the selected course of the plan.
The coordination is the process of amalgamation of individual parts of the hierarchical organization‟s activity to achieve common goals (Bakanauskas et al., 2011, p. 278). The coordination within the hierarchical Structure combines workers together, having different but interrelated work tasks in order to achieve the organizational goals.
Hierarchical structures do, however, provide improved coordination (Katz and Kahn, 1960). As noted by Smith (1970), the improved coordination leads to improved performance on measures which are enhanced by coordination. Although coordination is clearly improved by hierarchical structure, self-coordination can yield similar results in egalitarian groups (Morse and Reimer, 1956). It is important to also note that personality and organizational structure can interact to predict satisfaction (Tannenbaum and All port, 1956; Wilson, Arnoff and Messe, 1975) and productivity (Wilson, Arnoff, and Messe, 1975).
Members of hierarchical organizational structures chiefly communicate with their immediate superior and with their immediate subordinates. Structuring organizations in this way is useful partly because it can reduce the communication overhead by limiting information flow; this is also its major limitation
Identified the causes that give rise to the need for coordination:6
o The division of labor and specialization
o Individual attitude differences between employees that hinder to find concordant solutions, working methods, styles, or time
o Staff relationships, when communication between employees and managers is ineffective: it is insufficient; there is no feedback or non-constructive conflict;
o Limited resource allocation problems when different departments have to share the same resources at the same time or in turn in order to utilize them more effectively. The identification of these reasons and their effective use in organization management leads to better results.
Thus Coordination is essential to directing the activity of all members of the organization towards the main objectives of the organization.
The Apex body of the Hierarchical structure are responsible for the fluency of the activity coordination process, they motivate employees so that actions be coordinated with one another, that the division of labor and specialization of tasks splitted into the objectives be achieved, assigned tasks be performed in cooperation due to physical, psychological, cognitive and other personal limitations (Bakanauskas et al., 2011).7 Thus the apex body or the policy maker coordinate the subordinate as8
6Bea F. X. and Haas, J. (2005), Ginevicius, Sudzius (2008), Bakanauskas et al. (2011) 7
Bakanauskas A. and others. Management of Organizations. – Lithuania: Vytautas Magnus University 2011. – 432 p. - ISBN 978-9955-12-738-3
8 Ginevicius. R., Sudzius V. Theory of Organization. Vilnius: Technika, 2008. – 328 p. - ISBN 978-9955-28-150-4. – URL:
• Personal instruction coordinated bureaucratic systems, where a vertical hierarchy relation exists;
• Group coordination: committees, conferences, negotiations and other forms of communication, as well as the organizational culture as a collective phenomenon (values, norms, attitudes, etc. acceptable in the organization);
• Team coordination is based on the team members‟ initiative and specially created team organization units that follow team activity methods;
• Settlement systems also coordinate the actions of employees: if an employee knows that he will earn more if he reaches certain performance results or does a certain job, he will try to achieve this by coordinating his actions according to the pursuing results;
• Formal documents: work instructions, standards, procedures, rules, codes, etc.
• Activity is coordinated within established organizational management structures by special programs to solve complex problems, managing them with special programs, for which created special coordinating bodies and a detailed plan of step coordination.
The key parts of a Hierarchical organization and include the following.
Strategic apex
Techno structure Middle line support staff
Operative core
The strategic apex is top management and its support staff.
The operative core are the workers who actually carry out the organization‟s tasks. The Middle line is middle- and lower-level management.
The Techno structure are analysts such as engineers, accountants, planners, researchers, and personnel managers.
The Support staff are the people who provide indirect services.
The second basic dimension of an organization is its prime coordinating mechanism. This includes the following
Organizational Hierarchical Commitment towards organization:
Emotional commitment
identity by the organization, participates in the organization and is involved in it and enjoys membership in organization.9
Continuous commitment
Continuous commitment refers to individual's commitment based on his perception of the costs related to organization abandonment. According to this definition, people remain in the organization not because they feel moral force, or because they have emotional attachment, but because if they leave the organization, they may lose some occupational advantages such as status and occupational position.
Normative commitment
Normative commitment means staying in the organization because of moral force. In other words, people stay in the organization because they have a sense of duty that they should not leave the organization. People experiences before (such as the cultural and familial socialization) and after (organizational socialization) entering the organization are its effective factors.10
Teamwork and organizational commitment
Considerable impact of team work culture and group work is such that management scientists regard it as a prerequisite for achieving stable key capabilities in competitive environment of today‟s world.11 Working team institutionalization is achievable through promotion of team work culture.
Human capital and organizational commitment
Organizational development strategy is related to planning and implementing plans which is designed for increased effectiveness of organizational performance.12 This strategy includes strategies for designing organizational processes and organizational development plans for changing organizational shape and management of transition from current status to optimal one.
Formal and Informal Hierarchy
For most aspects of management and organization studies, „hierarchy‟ has been interpreted largely as formal hierarchy and used almost synonymously with organization; organization means hierarchy, and hierarchy means organization. Hierarchy can be understood as vertical formal integration of official positions within one explicit organizational structure whereby each position or office is under the control and supervision of a higher one.13 Following this tradition, formal hierarchical order can be defined as an official system of unequal person-independent roles and positions which are linked
9 Marique, G.; Stinglhamber, F. Identification to Proximal Targets and Affective Organizational Commitment. // Journal of
Personnel Psychology. 10, 3(2011), pp.107-117.
10 Allen, N. J.; Meyer, J. P. Construct validation in organizational behavior research: The case of organizational
commitment. // Problems and solutions in human assessment, Springer, U. S., (2000), pp. 285-314.
11 Crossman, A.; Lee-Kelley, L. Trust, commitment and team working: the paradox of virtual organizations. // Global
networks. 4, 4(2004), pp. 375-390.
12 Markard, J. Stadelmann, M. Truffer, Prospective analysis of technological innovation systems: Identifying technological
and organizational development options for biogas in Switzerland. // Research Policy. 38, 4(2009), pp.655-667.
via lines of top-down command-and- control. In 14a formal hierarchy, the official roles and positions of all members of the system are clearly defined and demarcated from each other; social relationships within organizations are institutionalized and legitimized first and foremost, if not exclusively, as hierarchical relations.15
However, people can be in vertical social relationships not only via anonymous or official rule systems, but also via unofficial mechanisms. These mechanisms can be found particularly in the realm of social guidelines and interaction (e.g. norms and values, verbal or non-verbal attitudes and behaviors, communication and discourses) and are therefore highly person-dependent processes.16 According to such an understanding, informal hierarchy can be defined (and identified) as person-dependent social relationships of dominance and subordination which emerge from social interaction and become persistent over time through repeated social processes (especially routine behavior).
Types of Hierarchy
Hierarchy, like other words that name deep and powerful concepts, is polysemous. In this section, I distinguish four different kinds of hierarchy: order hierarchy, inclusion hierarchy, control hierarchy and level hierarchy. As one might expect from the surname they all share, these kinds in part overlap; in part, though, they are contradictory.
Order hierarchy: In various technical contexts, hierarchy is sometimes taken to be equivalent to an ordering induced by the values of a variable defined on some set of elements. Consider, for example, the definition offered by Batty in his chapter in this volume: a hierarchy is a natural ordering that is initially based on size… This definition seems to be standard among the geographers and economists who study urban systems. Now an urban system consists of cities that engage in many kinds of interactions and relationships among themselves; that is why it is legitimate to speak of them as a system, rather than just a set of cities. But according to Batty‟s definition, none of these interactions and relationships is relevant to the existence of an urban hierarchy. Indeed, various models – from Gibrat (1931) to Gabaix (1999) – attempt to explain urban hierarchy via models that deny any role for systemic effects in generating the hierarchy: that is, they derive a distribution for city size on the assumption that the dynamics of population growth for any one city is independent from that of any other! Certainly, as Batty‟s chapter well illustrates, any serious urban geographer or historian understands that urban systems are systems, and the values of many variables associated to the cities in such a system, including but by no means merely restricted to their population sizes, are tied to the values of corresponding variables to other cities in the system, through networks of political, cultural, economic and social interaction among the cities themselves and the entities of which they are composed. Moreover, these systems have important hierarchical aspects, in the stronger senses of the word described in the texts. This definition has the advantages of clarity and abstraction, but it also weakens the richness and depth of the concept by reducing hierarchy to an ordered set. In contrast to the other senses of hierarchy discussed below, order hierarchy does not even refer to relationships and interactions among the entities that comprise the hierarchy, much less give any role to hierarchy in conditioning entity relationships and interaction
structures. As far as the relation between hierarchy and complexity is concerned, order is essential to hierarchy but order alone is not what makes hierarchy important for complex systems, nor is hierarchy the source of the order in complex systems.
Inclusion hierarchy: Herbert Simon defines hierarchy, In application to the architecture of complex systems, „hierarchy‟ simply means a set of Chinese boxes of a particular kind. A set of Chinese boxes usually consists of a box enclosing a second box, which, in turn, encloses a third the recursion continuing as long as the patience of the craftsman holds out. The Chinese boxes called „hierarchies‟ are a variant of that pattern. Opening any given box in a hierarchy discloses not just one new box within, but a whole small set of boxes; and opening any one of these component boxes discloses a new set in turn. Of course, this notion is just a special case of an order hierarchy, where the ordering variable is the number of boxes one opens before arriving at the particular box of interest. Clearly, however, it is more than this: it makes an ontological claim. An entity is a container, and what it contains are other entities; this is the structure of reality (at least that part of reality contained in an inclusion hierarchy) all the way down. The Chinese box image actually suggests more than this: not only is an entity a container, but there is nothing else in it but other entities. Note that an urban hierarchy as order hierarchy is just a set of cities ordered by, say, population size, and this is not an inclusion hierarchy; but if we think of an urban system as a collection of cities, which in turn contain, say, firms, households, institutions and organizations, which in turn contain people, then an urban system so regarded is an inclusion hierarchy.
Control Hierarchy: Probably the most commonly used sense of hierarchy, particularly in reference to social organizations, has to do with who gives orders to whom. In this context, hierarchy refers to a control system in which every entity has an assigned rank, and all power is concentrated in the (usually single) entity with the highest rank. Entities with a specified rank are entitled to give orders to entities with lower ranks, while they must obey orders received from elements with a higher rank. Orders flow rank-downwards in a control hierarchy; information and requests rank- upwards. In this sense, a church, political party, or army can be organized as a control hierarchy; but so can non-human systems, like the set of devices that comprise a building or factory automation system. Note that the entities that comprise a control hierarchy do not form an inclusion hierarchy, even though an army, for example, may be described in either way, depending on the units that correspond to entities.
Level hierarchy: Many authors use hierarchy to describe a particular kind of ontological organization, in which entities are posited to exist at different levels. Each level is characterized by a particular spatiotemporal scale for its associated entities and for the processes through which the entities at this level interact with one another: the higher the level, the more extended the associated spatiotemporal scale. Entities at a given level may, through their interactions, construct and maintain entities at higher levels, and higher-level entities may be, at least in part, composed of lower- level entities: these are often described by the term upward causation.
Working in groups presents at least three major problems. First, because group members often disagree over the group‟s goals, the strategies to pursue those goals, and possible solutions to problems, groups must make collective decisions in a peaceful and efficient manner.17 Second, groups must motivate members to behave selflessly and contribute to the group‟s success, even when such behavior requires personal investment and sacrifice.18 Third, groups must coordinate individual behavior so that members work in concert toward collective success; for example they must allocate tasks and responsibilities, maintain communication among members, and minimize intra-group conflict.19 According to the functionalist perspective, hierarchies help groups solve each of these problems.
Collective decision-making
Hierarchies help groups solve the problem of collective decision-making by giving disproportionate control to one or few members. Group leaders are given control over decisions and allowed to direct others‟ actions, whereas lower ranked individuals are expected to defer to others and keep their opinions to themselves.20 This concentration of control at the top helps groups make decisions more efficiently and avoid conflict over control.21 Hierarchies are also thought to increase the quality of group decisions by giving disproportionate control to the most competent individuals. Decisions about a group‟s goals or strategies are often fraught with ambiguity and intimidating complexity. Competent individuals presumably will make better decisions for the group than would those with lesser or average acuity.22
Motivating members
To help overcome the second major challenge, that of motivating individual members to contribute to the group, hierarchies are thought to provide social, material, and psychological incentives.23 For example, high rank comes with greater respect and admiration, autonomy, power, social support, self-esteem, well- being, lower physiological stress, and material resources.
As supportive evidence of this idea, studies have consistently found that groups give higher rank to members who make more sacrifices for the group.24 In contrast, individuals who are perceived as acting in ways that are selfish and harmful to the group are given lower rank.25 Additionally, recent work has shown that providing individuals higher status motivates them to act more selflessly.
Intra-group coordination
Finally, hierarchies are thought to help groups address the third major challenge, that of intra-group coordination, by reducing conflict and facilitating communication. As previously mentioned,
17 Cartwright & Zander, 1953; Levine & Moreland, 1990; Van Vugt et al., 2008
18Hardin, 1982; Kerr & Tindale, 2004; Latane, Williams, & Harkins, 1979; Willer, 2009
19Blau & Scott, 1962; Cartwright & Zander, 1953; Hinsz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997; Levine & Moreland, 1990 20 Bales et al., 1951; Berger, Rosenholtz, & Zelditch, 1980; Goffman, 1967; Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003. 21 Cartwright & Zander, 1953; Van Vugt et al., 2008.
22 Berger et al., 1980; Davis & Moore, 1945; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989; Ridgeway & Diekema, 1989. 23
Barnard, 1964; Berger, Cohen, & Zelditch, 1972; Blau, 1964; Davis & Moore, 1945; Frank, 1985; Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006; Homans, 1950; Kanter, 1977; Keltner et al., 2008; Lambert, Larcker, & Weigelt, 1993; Lazear & Rosen, 1981; Pfeffer & Cohen, 1984; Tannenbaum et al., 1974; Thibault & Kelley, 1959; Van Emmerik, Lambooy, & Sanders, 2002; Willer, 2009.
24
Blau, 1964; Flynn, Reagans, Amanatullah, & Ames, 2006; Ridgeway & Diekema, 1989; Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006; Willer, 2009.
25 Anderson, Ames, & Gosling, 2008; Anderson et al., 2006; Blau, 1964; Homans, 1950; Ridgeway & Diekema, 1989;
hierarchies putatively facilitate an orderly division of resources and influence among group members, using such means as allowing or denying different individuals access to resources and the rights to perform certain behaviors.26 Differential allocation of responsibilities and control helps mitigate the common problem of having „„too many cooks in the kitchen,‟‟ wherein too many individuals desire access to the scarce resource of leadership.
Hierarchies are also thought to allow information to flow between members more efficiently and for the integration of this information to occur more easily. For example, in the prototypical pyramid hierarchy, information travels up through hierarchical levels until it reaches group leaders. The leaders integrate this diverse information and make the relevant decisions. Their decisions then flow down to each respective hierarchical level and get implemented according to leaders‟ plans.
In the aforementioned organizational elements of this article prevail these activity measures: Detalization, specification, regulation of actions (processes, operations), provided in the plan
(work planning, job evaluation, extension, enrichment, ergonomics)
Work grouping by functions, processes, products, customers, geographical location (branches), time (shifts);
Anticipation, selection of employees for detailed and regulated operations, detailed specification of their position, familiarization with their duties and operations.
Anticipation of communication and subordination between employees (OMS setting of control rate, i.e. number of employees directly reporting to the Head manager, and management chains, i.e. team chains, visible to any organization in the organizational management structure);
Division of responsibilities between managers, managing the implementation of the plan (centralization, decentralization, delegation, i.e. a formal grant of authority to a subordinate to carry out certain activities, which are not included in the work description) Preparation of control systems of plan realization (of procedure, methods, process),
using basic control mechanisms – the hierarchy, rules, procedures.
Limitations and Criticisms:
Peter Self does not hold favourable opinion about hierarchy. In governmental system the application of this policy or idea is not a realistic one. Let us see what he says: A hierarchical image of government is not very realistic… This is because the procedural rules or conventions which legitimise the ultimate exercise of authority are rarely clear enough.27
Hierarchy is a very well-known feature of modern administrative system. But there are several shortcomings-and one such shortcoming is conflicts frequently arise among various ranks and office-holders. Many employees of different ranks may refuse to cooperate with the higher officer. It is very often found that the order of the higher officer does not conform to reality and, in that case, employees of the lower rank may raise objection. A very important aspect of hierarchy is cooperation. There must be cooperation among all the sections or departments of organisation. But in reality it is found that this does not exist. This damages the function of hierarchy as well as organisation. If in any organisation
26 Barnard, 1964; Berger et al., 1980; Chance, 1967; Durkheim, 1893/1997; Katz & Kahn, 1966; Keltner et al., 2008;
Leavitt, 2005; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Marx,1844/1964; Mintzberg, 1983; Parsons, 1961; Tiedens, Unzetta, & Young, 2007.
27 Lawrence, W. Gordon, 1985: “A Psycho-Analytic Perspective for Understanding Organizational Life”, In Chattopadhyay,
there are unmanageable employees whose views is not to cooperate with the management or to find fault with others in that situation the normal functioning of the organisation is likely to be adversely affected. Again, the management cannot be in a position to get rid of such employees because in many states trade unionism is very powerful. The feature or special aspect of hierarchy is that all the departments or sections must cooperate with each other and must try to make the organisation a grand success.
For successful functioning of hierarchy there must exist cordial relation among all sections especially between the chief executive and his subordinates. In many cases the relation is a sour one and the inevitable consequence is that fruitful functioning of the organisation is affected. Since hierarchy is not controlled or managed by definite laws or principles conflicts become the normal feature of the organisation. Another drawback of this system is authority, labour and remuneration are not always properly distributed; grievances among many are bound to crop up. This usually happens in large organisations. Some persons get higher remuneration doing less work and many others get more salary doing less job. This very often acts as potential source of conflict. Since there are no fixed principles of hierarchy, the system is not uniform everywhere. The system works differently in different organisations. This evidently creates problem for hierarchy in public administration. It may be an idea or principle but public administration as a distinct discipline of social science, it must have a clear principle. It may be stated here that in order to be a clear and effective principle the hierarchy must have definite ideas, processes and rule and these must have as far as possible universality (universality not in the strict sense). Another criticism against it is that it creates a wall between the superior and his subordinates. But the fact is that in an administration everyone is essential. One employee may not always be more important than others. But in the hierarchical structure the black spot is superior and subordinate and this is likely to sour the relationship. This is undesirable we must remember this. These shortcomings can, however, be overcome if cautious steps are adopted.
Conclusion
Study shows how the hierarchical organizational structure affects strategies and performance of the organization. It focus on the structural element of the organization. The effective Hierarchical organization facilitates a good and proper relationship among the various subunit and employee of the organization. It reveal that the performance of the organization depends on the structure of the hierarchy of the organization. It is therefore recommended that management of the organization should follow the hierarchy and the decorum of the hierarchical functions and ensuring the proper structures are in the proper positions to implement the sets of goal of the organization.
