Factors Influencing Organizational Structure
The development in the organization in the modern world is highly dependent on the organizational structure of the company. There are some major factors in form of internal environment and external environment. It is important that these areas are covered so that there is no hurdle in the development of the company. Evidence has shown that it is important to have an organizational structure that supports the changing nature of the internal and external environment (Ahmady, Mehrpour & Nikooravesh, 2016). The KDH hospital is looking for a change and the current organizational structure in the organization is a functional organization structure but this structure does not suit the changing internal and external environment. The alternative system which can be adopted by the Katandra district hospital is a matrix organizational structure. There will be proper analyze done in this essay regarding the current structure of Katandra district hospital. This essay will also talk about the advantages and disadvantages of a functional organizational structure. It will also talk about how matrix structure will be useful for Katandra district hospital.
There has been a major impact made by the organization in the success of an organization. It is all about how the organization is looking forward to achieving its goal. Organization structure includes the roles and responsibilities of individuals and also determines how information flows between different levels within an organization (Winnubst, 2017). It has been seen that organizational structure must be easy where it is easy to communicate from top to bottom and there is proper knowledge about the company vision and mission among its employees. A good organizational structure should always be highly adaptive to the changing internal and external environment of the company.
It is important to analyse the current structure which is present in the Katandra district hospital. Katandra district hospital is having 100 beds and the structure which is present in the hospital is functional organizational structure. In functional organizational structure, the business structure of the organization is divided by the skills or specialty (Bai et al., 2017). In this structure, departments do not communicate with each other and that is one of the things which can cause trouble for the growth of the organization.
After analysing the present scenario it can be said that there is a change going in the hospital and the present structure would not be efficient. Number of beds will be 300 and that means employees have to communicate a lot. That is why Katandra district hospital should look forward to adapt a structure which provides better communication between employees. The internal environment factors such as requirements of the workforce and change in community needs have to be countered with a proper set of organizational structures (Strese et al., 2016). But before that lets analyse the advantages and disadvantages of a functional organizational structure.
After analysing functional organization structure it can be said that in this structure employees are grouped in their departments and that helps them in sighting their goals. It has been seen that when the employees are working together then the efficiency increases as they can share the quality information (Mao et al., 2017). In the hospital sector, grouping together has a major impact on the performance of the individuals. Division of labor is present in the work environment that is good for achieving the goal.
Functional Organizational Structure
Division of department makes sure that individuals who are having specified skills are working in their department (Rahbek-Clemmensen et al., 2017). They do not have to work in any other department as this division is purely based on skill-based. It has been seen that when there are separate departments in the structure then the organization does not face any kind of pressure. There is no room for stress to develop in Individuals.
The major issue in this type of this structure is that there is no room for proper communication between two departments. When there is change taking place in an organization there must be proper communication between different departments is needed. The vision and mission cannot be completed without proper communication in different departments. It has also been witnessed that when the external environment is changing then there is a need for people in power to react faster. But in a functional organization, only the chief executive is managing the entire department and that makes it tough to cope with the changes.
Another major challenge that can be witnessed in this structure is the centralized decision. The decision is taken by a central authority and no other individual can be part of that decision and which makes it tough to reach the organization in case of emergency in an external environment (Fairfield, 2016). Due to these reasons, Katandra district hospital should look forward to having a new model of organizational structure in place.
When one analyses the current need of the organization it could be said that matrix structure is suitable for Katandra district hospital. It would not be wrong to say that this organizational structure makes sure that people from different organizational structures are having proper communication (Patri & Suresh, 2017). This structure helps the company when the change is taking place and it promotes the change within the employees. It has been seen that this structure has helped provide the necessary support. It has been witnessed that when there is a change in the environment there are multiple people who can take care of the change as compared to the functional model where only the chief executive has to deal with the changes. Through matrix structure, it is easy to organize and coordinate when the organization is going through a change (Kishore, Pretorius & Gopinath, 2019).
The major advantages which has been witnessed after analysing matrix structure can be seen in form of open communication between employees helps in improving the environment at the workplace. In the healthcare sector, it is important to have good communication as it promotes a good environment. There is a collaborative working environment which makes working much easier (Benzer et al., 2017). Individuals from different sectors communicate and give their feedback on the selective issues. This helps in increasing the quality of the care provided in the hospital. It has been witnessed that formative feedback plays a significant role.
There is a clear project objective in front of the individuals and that helps them concentrate as well. Functional employees combine with the generalist managers and make sure that there are no problems faced by the employees (Berkowitz, 2021). Employee time is used in a significant manner and there is no wastage of time.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Functional Organizational Structure
However, there are some disadvantages of matrix organization structure. It has been witnessed that employees have to report to multiple people and that increases the organizational complexity. When complexity is there in the structure the impact might be there on the productivity of the employees. It has been seen that this structure is quite complex and many employees can find that challenging as well.
There are too many senior authorities and that might create some sort of conflict in top management in matrix structure (Vaishnavi, Suresh & Dutta, 2019). It has been witnessed that conflict in management can be countered by assigning different power to different roles. There is the problem of roles clearly not defined among the employees. It might slow down the process of decision making and that can be challenging for the organization,
After analysing it can be said that the matrix structure is better as it has been seen that Katandra district hospital is going through a change and it is important to adapt to the change. The change can be adopted with a matrix structure. There is enough room for communication in this structure and the internal and external change in the environment can easily be dealt with in a matrix structure as compared to a functional structure
Based on the above analysis of both the structures, it can be said that Katandra district hospital can look forward to changing its organizational structure. There are major changes taking place in the organization and that will need a proper structure that can deal with changes in the internal environment and external environment. Functional structure is not bad but it does not provide enough room for communication and that might cause a big issue for them.
References
Ahmady, G. A., Mehrpour, M., & Nikooravesh, A. (2016). Organizational structure. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, 455-462.
Bai, W., Feng, Y., Yue, Y., & Feng, L. (2017). Organizational structure, cross-functional integration and performance of new product development team. Procedia Engineering, 174, 621-629.
Benzer, J. K., Charns, M. P., Hamdan, S., & Afable, M. (2017). The role of organizational structure in readiness for change: A conceptual integration. Health services management research, 30(1), 34-46.
Berkowitz, E. N. (2021). Essentials of health care marketing. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Fairfield, K. D. (2016). Understanding functional and divisional organizational structure: A classroom exercise. Management Teaching Review, 1(4), 242-251.
Kishore, N., Pretorius, J. H. C., & Chattopadhyay, G. (2019, December). The Roles of Functional Managers and Project Managers in a Matrix Organization. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM) (pp. 784-788). IEEE.
Mao, P., Li, S., Ye, K., & Cai, H. (2017). A field theory based model for identifying the effect of organizational structure on the formation of organizational culture in construction projects. KSCE journal of civil engineering, 21(1), 45-53.
Patri, R., & Suresh, M. (2017). Modelling the enablers of agile performance in healthcare organization: a TISM approach. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 18(3), 251-272.
Rahbek-Clemmensen, T., Lycas, M. D., Erlendsson, S., Eriksen, J., Apuschkin, M., Vilhardt, F., … & Gether, U. (2017). Super-resolution microscopy reveals functional organization of dopamine transporters into cholesterol and neuronal activity-dependent nanodomains. Nature communications, 8(1), 1-14.
Strese, S., Meuer, M. W., Flatten, T. C., & Brettel, M. (2016). Organizational antecedents of cross-functional coopetition: The impact of leadership and organizational structure on cross-functional coopetition. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 42-55.
Vaishnavi, V., Suresh, M., & Dutta, P. (2019). A study on the influence of factors associated with organizational readiness for change in healthcare organizations using TISM. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Winnubst, J. (2017). Organizational structure, social support, and burnout. In Professional burnout (pp. 151-162). Routledge.