What Does It Mean to Move Toward a “Flatter” Structure?

Markus Reitzig ()
Additional contact information
Markus Reitzig: University of Vienna

Chapter 1 in Get Better at Flatter, 2022, pp 3-18 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter is devoted to the question of what it takes to make flat structures work at all, before trying to make them the better alternative. Drawing on four corporate case examples (T-Systems, Reaktor, Wistia, Treehouse), it illustrates that flat structures can both succeed and fail. It raises the question of what explains failures in order to avoid them. Recalling that “flattening” means delayering hierarchical structures, it demonstrates that working without mid-level managers increases workloads for both employees and remaining managers. It argues that delayering can only work when remaining managers gain extra time by delegating decision-making rights efficiently to employees, and when employees feel compelled to use their new autonomy. It ends by asking where exactly managers can delegate to save time (Chap. 2 ), and why employees would be willing to take over the responsibility (Chap. 3 ).

Keywords: Decentralizing; Span of control; Depth of hierarchy; Flat structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-89254-8_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030892548

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-89254-8_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().