Organizational chart
Job definitions
Span of control
supervisor
Authority
Responsibility
Accountability
When establishing the structure, designers typically start by defining larger groups and then
decompose them into smaller units. Departmentalization is a process of grouping together
employees who share a common supervisor and resources, who are jointly responsible for
performance and who tend to identify and collaborate with each other. The organizational chart
usually shows the departments within an organization. The chart also shows relationships between
departmental staff in the organization which can be Line (direct relationship between superior and
subordinate); Lateral (relationship between different departments on the same hierarchical level),
Staff and functional. At a high level, designers distinguish between different categories of
employee. For example Staff employees are workers who are in advisory positions and who use
their specialized expertise to support the efforts of line employees. Employees may be related to
one another in a variety of ways. A Line relationship is a formal relationship between individual
positions within an organisation where authority flows vertically down through the structure; a
Functional relationship is where staff department specialists have the authority to insist that line
managers implement their instructions concerning a particular issue and Lateral relationships are
formal relationships which exist between individuals in different departments or sections,
especially between individuals on the same level. In many large companies the organization chart
can be large and incredibly complicated and is therefore sometimes broken down into smaller
charts for each individual department within the organization. There are several limitations with
organizational charts. Firstly, they only show 'formal relationships'. Secondly they do not show
anything about the managerial style adopted (e.g. Autocratic or democratic).