flat and traditional organizational structure

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flat and traditional organizational structure

by barron » Wed May 21, 2008 12:21 am
“Corporations and other businesses should try to eliminate the many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise. A ‘flat’ organizational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees.”
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons
and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.


The author is assuming a 'flat' organizational style would be more beneficial than the traditional orrganizational structure as it will encourage collegiaty and cooperation among employees. It also discounts all the benefits provided by the traditional structure.

First and foremost, the traditional structure encourages people to know more about their work. The people are given strong incentives to do this.
They are rewarded based on their contibution to the organization. The rewarding can be either in the form of a promotion or a salary incentive.
This way the employees are bothe apreciated and recognized for it by the employers. but in the flat organizational structure, there is no incentive for a better work or an additional effort. This will have a demotivating effect on all employees. most of them will see their careers as stagnant and will lose motivation. In this way, the flat structure makes more of a negative impact than a positive one.

furthermore, The traditional structure shows new joinees and young employees about successfully working in a work environment by looking at the working of people with senior grades. They also provide a better management style because of the clear distribution of individual responsibilities. On the contrast, a flat structure will always have some ambiguity regarding the responsibilities and to whom should on report. This curtails the effecient delegation of work and becomes difficult to monitor the progress.

One of the main arguments for a flat structure is that it encourages collegiality and cooperation among employees. The main flaw in this is that it assumes that it is more likely to have this effect in a flat structure than in a traditional struture without any evidence. It is more likelythat
traditional structure is likely to have the same effect in many cases, if not better. So, this argument doesn't make flat structure much better than a traditional one.

Traditional structure has some flaws. That doesn't mean one has to reject this approach and go for another. One should only do this if one knows that the new structure will complement the weakness of traditional structure without diminishing the benefits of the latter. The flat structure doesn't do this. It severely diminishes the benefits of traditional structure. As a result, Traditional structure is much better than a flat structure.

pls rate this essay and comment on the structure....

how many paragrapghs or words are necessary for GMAT?

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by VP_Jim » Fri May 23, 2008 7:52 pm
Hi barron,

Since this essay is Analysis of an Issue, you don't need to talk about the author's assumptions (that's for the other essay type). Instead, you need to take a position on the issue and argue for the side you choose.

Also, always include an introductory paragraph and a conclusion in your essay. I recommend three body paragraphs (plus the intro and conclusion) for every essay, with one main point per paragraph. Remember to proofread carefully before you submit!

Finally, in this essay type, always back your position with specific, real world examples. Aim for proper nouns, such as people, companies, events in history, works of literature, etc. This will greatly strengthen your argument.

Based on these points, I'd give this essay a score of 3.

Hope this helps!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep

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by barron » Mon May 26, 2008 7:39 am
thanks for the analysis

especially for pointing the mistake about the type of question

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by saketk » Tue Jun 21, 2011 5:49 am
Please rate my essay....


"Corporations and other businesses should try to eliminate the many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise. A 'flat' organizational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.




In today's time of tough competition it is of utmost priority that every organisation should draw clear strategies and guidelines to efficiently deal with every challenge and problems it faces. Team work is one of the key area where every organisation put lots of emphasizes. Team work can only be achieved with mutual understanding and cooperation among the employees. A successful organisation also requires employees with varied expertise and experience. A traditional organisational hierarchy comprises of many ranks and salary grades defined as per the experience and expertise of its employees with properly defined roles and responsibilities for each and every role. The argument stated above fails to take into account many key factors before concluding that a 'flat' organisational structure where there is no hierarchy defined as compared to a traditional organisational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees.

As stated above that a traditional organisational hierarchy comprises of many ranks and salary structures, we shall discuss few points to understand the advantages of having such structures in an organisation. In every successful organisation organisational hierarchy is defined after putting lot of research and every role and responsibilities are defined after taking into consideration many key factors like the employee academics, experience and the area where the employee has worked into. This kind of structure not only helps every employee to know their role but also helps them to understand their responsibility better. If in an organisation role and responsibilities are not properly defined can lead to lot of confusion and can cause unrest among the employees. For example: If a graduate from engineering college with no past experience of handling a team is directly put into a team and asked to manage a project will not only create a difficult situation for the employee but will also affect his morale. In contrast, if an employee with vast industry experience is asked to manage a critical project can not only guide the team, help in solving issues but will also give ideas from his experience which can help to tackle with those problems. Thus it becomes very important to have the role and responsibilities properly defined.

Almost in every organisation there is an annual review cycle where each employee is awarded with salary hike, promotion or both based on their performance over the financial year. If there is no such structure in the organisation there will be no encouragement or drive for an employee to perform well. This will directly affect the organisation progress and can create many difficult situations for it to survive in the competitive market. Also, if an employee with rich industry experience, is not paid accordingly can lead to discouragement and dissatisfaction to an employee. Annual salary hikes and promotions not only encourage an employee to perform well but also lead to employee satisfaction. A happy environment also leads to innovation which every organisation looks for in every employee.


Taking into account the timelines and the quality which every project demands, it becomes very important to monitor the work that every team member is doing. Therefore, team leads or managers are assigned the task to do peer review of the deliverables to ensure that the work being delivered is of best of the quality and within the defined timelines. If the power is equally shared within the team then there will be no one to monitor the project timelines and to do a proper review of the work. All this will lead to customer dissatisfaction and harm to organisations position in the market.

As every successful organisation not only wants to remain in competition but also wants to be a leader in the market, it becomes very essential that there should be a proper strategies and guidelines defined. In today's market innovation, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, hard work and smart work are the key pillars for an organisation to flourish and stay healthy in the competition. All of this can be achieved with a properly defined organisational structure which will act as a solid foundation for all these pillars.

Thanks in Advance,
Saket

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by tracyyahoo » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:54 pm
321312
saketk wrote:Please rate my essay....


"Corporations and other businesses should try to eliminate the many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise. A 'flat' organizational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.




In today's time of tough competition it is of utmost priority that every organisation should draw clear strategies and guidelines to efficiently deal with every challenge and problems it faces. Team work is one of the key area where every organisation put lots of emphasizes. Team work can only be achieved with mutual understanding and cooperation among the employees. A successful organisation also requires employees with varied expertise and experience. A traditional organisational hierarchy comprises of many ranks and salary grades defined as per the experience and expertise of its employees with properly defined roles and responsibilities for each and every role. The argument stated above fails to take into account many key factors before concluding that a 'flat' organisational structure where there is no hierarchy defined as compared to a traditional organisational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees.

As stated above that a traditional organisational hierarchy comprises of many ranks and salary structures, we shall discuss few points to understand the advantages of having such structures in an organisation. In every successful organisation organisational hierarchy is defined after putting lot of research and every role and responsibilities are defined after taking into consideration many key factors like the employee academics, experience and the area where the employee has worked into. This kind of structure not only helps every employee to know their role but also helps them to understand their responsibility better. If in an organisation role and responsibilities are not properly defined can lead to lot of confusion and can cause unrest among the employees. For example: If a graduate from engineering college with no past experience of handling a team is directly put into a team and asked to manage a project will not only create a difficult situation for the employee but will also affect his morale. In contrast, if an employee with vast industry experience is asked to manage a critical project can not only guide the team, help in solving issues but will also give ideas from his experience which can help to tackle with those problems. Thus it becomes very important to have the role and responsibilities properly defined.

Almost in every organisation there is an annual review cycle where each employee is awarded with salary hike, promotion or both based on their performance over the financial year. If there is no such structure in the organisation there will be no encouragement or drive for an employee to perform well. This will directly affect the organisation progress and can create many difficult situations for it to survive in the competitive market. Also, if an employee with rich industry experience, is not paid accordingly can lead to discouragement and dissatisfaction to an employee. Annual salary hikes and promotions not only encourage an employee to perform well but also lead to employee satisfaction. A happy environment also leads to innovation which every organisation looks for in every employee.


Taking into account the timelines and the quality which every project demands, it becomes very important to monitor the work that every team member is doing. Therefore, team leads or managers are assigned the task to do peer review of the deliverables to ensure that the work being delivered is of best of the quality and within the defined timelines. If the power is equally shared within the team then there will be no one to monitor the project timelines and to do a proper review of the work. All this will lead to customer dissatisfaction and harm to organisations position in the market.

As every successful organisation not only wants to remain in competition but also wants to be a leader in the market, it becomes very essential that there should be a proper strategies and guidelines defined. In today's market innovation, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, hard work and smart work are the key pillars for an organisation to flourish and stay healthy in the competition. All of this can be achieved with a properly defined organisational structure which will act as a solid foundation for all these pillars.

Thanks in Advance,
Saket