There are several different structures: functional, market oriented, integrated and adaptive structures. Functional structure refers to an organization form in which grouping of employees is based on particular functions such as advertising. Further, the functional selection of structure may be divided into simple, machine bureaucracy, and professional bureaucracy. Each of the subdivision may illustrate a particular industry or organizational need in order to best optimize the efficiency and effectiveness. In my experience, the functional structure has a rather generic approach in which only functional tools are utilized: this approach ignores the multi-verse and creative nature of human being. Thus, it may result in decrease utility and ultimately in lower production efficiency.
Market oriented approach divides and groups employees based on the targeted customer segments. This particular approach uses a reverse methodology i.e. who/what is the targets, in order to create the most effective group of employees to serve those particular segments. In my experience, market oriented approach is more effective than functional approach: by reverse tracking, firms can select those teams that are best suited to server their particular goals.
An even better approach is the integrated structure, which refers to the combination of functional and market oriented organization. In this particular approach, an organization can select to implement either approach or combine them. Such approach naturally creates a greater flexibility in adapting the organizational response to particular needs of the market. I believe that such flexibility is a better choice to reach adaptability.
More adaptive structures attempt to empower employees by emphasizing core process i.e. horizontal organization, or creating sponsorships i.e. lattice organizations. This approach assumes that frontline workers which have a sense of ownership will naturally have a greater involvement that may lead to better end results. In my experience employee empowerment may illustrate a sense of ownership that my lead to negative outcomes by ignoring core skills and expertise.
Other approaches such as alliances and modular organizations which use external resource to streamline internal dependency function under the assumption that external entities are reliable partners or subcontractors which will perform to the highest standards, in order to minimize the internal cost of adaptability. In my experience, it is a risky venture to allow external entities to have influence on back bone structures: the dependency factor creates minimization of authority and loss of leverage which in turn may have negative impact on negotiations and bottom lines.
Personally, I believe that an optimal organization is simply adaptable: in today's flexible and ever changing global environment, no organization can have a long term structure. If the final goal of an organization is its longevity, it is vital to be elastic and even more importantly adaptable. Thus, a well structured organization, is an organization which can reshuffle it selves in order to adjust to its market and more importantly adjust to its competitors.
