The Organisation of a Business

This is the traditional organisational structure of a company. You will probably find this kind of organisational structure in your school or college. Here there is one person or group of people at the top of the hierarchy and then several levels of people below them.

Here is an example of a hierarchical system. Often the subgroups are organised into operational areas and we will look at these later.

A flat structure aims to have as few levels as possible between the layers in a hierarchy. This type of hierarchy occurs in companies that want to give responsibility to individuals in the company without requiring as much line management.

In a matrix organisational structure, there is a mixture of hierarchy and mixed project-based teams. There is collaboration between departments sharing resources and skills.

This type of organisation places an emphasis on individuals across the company. It is a flat organisational structure and there are no positions of authority at the top of the organisation as in a hierarchy. Individuals have a great deal of autonomy in this form of organisational structure and authority is spread across the organisation.