Span of control and Scalar Chain

What is Span of control and Scalar Chain?

Through my understanding, a span of control is the number to worker who report directly to a manager. The more workers under one manager, the wider the span of control. A wider span of control therefore forms a FLAT organisation. We will discuss more about FLAT organization later

Scalar Chain is the number of level of the management, for example the first level on the management is director, then manager, assistant manager, then only junior worker. the example has 4 level in the scalar chain

Tall and Flat organisation

A tall organisation has many level of management. The chart below shows the tall organisation structure. It has a narrow span of control.

We can see that, each leader only has one staff under him, the order can be directly send directly throughout the level. The staff will has incentive to work hard since there is less competition among themselves to get promotion, but it may also happen in opposite way. A tall organization may cause inefficiency when the works pass through too may hands.

A flat organisation

This type of organization structure is the opposite tall organization, it has wider span of control just like the chart below

There is less level of management in this structure. The cost involve in administration is low. Worker in this organisation may have closer relationship with their superior. The top level management may able to know bottom level staff well, and assign them to the task which is best for the staff.

Centralisation and decentralisation

What is Centralisation?

In the class, Mr Bill had used a good example to explain about what is centralisation. He used a kid n his parent as a example. When the kid goes for outting, he has to report everything to his parent. Every time he goes out, he must be back home before 11pm, if not he will be punished. The control of parent over their son is call centralisation. In a centralised organisation, the upper level of an organisation is just like the parent for the kid, the lower level just like the son, they have little chance to make their own decision.

Decentralisation is totally different from centralisation. We can use PARENT AND SON example also but in the other way round. The lower levels of an organisation have more chances to make their own decision just like the parent give more freedom to their son.