Understanding Organizational Design

This lesson introduces the concepts behind organizational design for businesses, starting from the most basic beginnings to larger and larger hierarchies.

This business lesson discusses horizontal and vertical differentiation in a restaurant, and explains how the hierarchy splits into roles and responsibilities.

In this lesson, learn about subunit orientation, how it happens, and why, as well as how integration helps coordinate various tasks and divisions together.

In this lesson, learn how authority can be handled in an organization, whether centralized or decentralized, and how that will affect a business.

In this lesson, learn how organizations influence individuals and groups in their decision-making, either through standardized rules or established norms.

In this lesson, learn about the mechanistic and organic approaches to organizational structure and how they function within a business or organization.

This lesson discusses the contingency approach of organization in detail, giving examples of circumstances that can challenge a business and its operation.

This lesson discusses the differences between a tall organization and a flat organization and how finding balance between them is the key to success.

In this lesson on organizational design and structure, learn how various problems develop within tall hierarchies and possible ideas to avoid them.

Learn how Parkinson's law was formulated, how it illustrates bureaucratic issues in a large organization, and how it can be understood for effective management.

In this lesson about organizational structure, learn what a span of control is, how it affects management, and the basic rules for deciding their size.

This lesson covers what a bureaucracy is, who defined it as a term, and the different advantages and disadvantages within a bureaucratic structure.

In this lesson, learn how grouping tasks according to their functions in your business can provide clear roles and also make things run more efficiently.

This lesson discusses the limits of the functional structure of organization, and introduces the divisional structure, which is better for larger organizations.

In this lesson, learn how divisional organization in a company supports a company's product and how types of organization are specialized for product needs.

This lesson takes a deeper look at the divisional structure that focuses on product divisions in a business that has centralized support for those products.

In this lesson, get a look at an example of a multidivisional organizational structure, how it works, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

In this lesson, learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the product team organizational structure, as well as differences from other product structures.

In this lesson, the general concept behind a geographic structure, its organization, and how it can meet specific business needs is discussed.

In this lesson, learn how a market-based organizational structure would affect a business and its practices when organized with these type of divisions.

Discover how a matrix structure works, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, in this lesson. Also covered is a brief overview of a hybrid structure.

This lesson covers the basic organizational design concepts behind the network structure, including the advantages and disadvantages it has for a company.