Mintzberg Organisational Configurations

What Mintzberg organisational configurations are

Mintzberg organisational configurations (تكوينات مينتزبرغ) are a descriptive classification of organisations into 5 forms. Each form combines a pattern of structure with a dominant way of coordinating work among the people who do it. The classification is attributed to Henry Mintzberg and is linked to his book “The Structuring of Organizations” of 1979 and to his article “Structure in 5’s: a synthesis of the research on organization design” of 1980. In their common presentation the configurations are the simple structure, the machine bureaucracy, the professional bureaucracy, the divisionalised form and the adhocracy.

The classification gives names to forms of structure. It does not claim that any one configuration is better than another, and it is not a description of the structures of organisations in the Kingdom.

Where the classification comes from

We checked the following works in Crossref. The article by Mintzberg, “Structure in 5’s: a synthesis of the research on organization design”, in Management Science, volume 26, issue 3, 1980, pages 322 to 341. An article that Crossref records under the names of Hage and Mintzberg, “The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of Research”, in Administrative Science Quarterly, volume 25, issue 3, 1980, page 547. Two reviews of the book whose titles give its name and its author: the review by Kieser in Organization Studies, volume 2, issue 2, 1981, pages 185 to 188, and the review by Nahapiet in Management Education and Development, volume 10, issue 3, 1979, pages 224 and 225.

We did not read any of them, so we quote no wording and no result from them. What follows is a summary in our own words of what secondary sources pass on, and those sources differ in some details, among them which part of the organisation dominates in each configuration.

The five parts and the five coordination mechanisms

The summaries describe an organisation as having five parts: the strategic apex (top management), the middle line (the managers between the apex and the workers who carry out the work), the operating core (those who perform the basic work), the technostructure (analysts of standards and planning) and the support staff (those who provide supporting services). They describe five mechanisms for coordinating work: mutual adjustment, by which people coordinate through dialogue among themselves; direct supervision, in which one person directs others; standardisation of work processes; standardisation of outputs; and standardisation of skills.

The five configurations

The summaries link each configuration to a dominant mechanism and a dominant part, and the sources differ in detail, so we set them out in this way:

• Simple Structure. Direct supervision dominates and so does the strategic apex. It is described as found in small or young organisations, where the owner or the top manager decides most matters.
• Machine Bureaucracy. Standardisation of work processes dominates and so does the technostructure. It is described as suiting repetitive work in large, stable organisations.
• Professional Bureaucracy. Standardisation of skills dominates and so does the operating core. It is described as one in which professionals have wide independence in how they perform, as in hospitals and universities.
• Divisionalised Form. Semi independent units are coordinated by the apex. The summaries say the middle line stands out and that standardisation of outputs is the mechanism closest to dominant.
• Adhocracy. A flexible structure in which mutual adjustment dominates. It is described as suiting changing environments and work that does not repeat.

We take the word “bureaucracy” in the two names to describe coordination of work by standard rules and not to be a term of blame as in everyday speech, and that is our estimate. The entry on formalization distinguishes written rules from bureaucracy by a testable criterion, which is a different use of the word from the description of the two configurations.

How the configurations differ from nearby concepts

• Organisational design. An organisation’s deliberate choice of its structure to fit what it wants to do, its size and the nature of its work is the topic of organisational design. Design is the making of decisions by the organisation, whereas the classification names forms and takes no decision.
• Divisional structure. Dividing the organisation into self contained units, each running a product, a market or a region, is set out under divisional structure. The divisionalised form may correspond to this pattern, and that link between the two terms is ours, not a statement in either.
• Matrix organisation. A structure in which the employee reports to two parties at the same time is described in matrix organization. It is a particular structure that is not listed among the five configurations in the summaries we consulted.
• Span of control. The number of subordinates a single manager supervises is the measure behind span of control. It is one number in a structure, while a configuration describes a whole pattern of parts and mechanisms.
• Decentralisation. The transfer of the right to take particular decisions from the top to lower levels by a written rule falls under decentralized management. The summaries state the kind of decentralisation in each configuration, with differences among them, and that does not replace the question of which decisions moved and under what rule.

A hypothetical example: when a team that works by mutual adjustment grows

Take a hypothetical organisation in which a project team of 6 people works by mutual adjustment, each speaking with every colleague. The number of possible channels of dialogue among n people is n × (n minus 1) ÷ 2, so for six people it is 6 × 5 ÷ 2 = 15 channels. The team then grew to 12 people, and the channels became 12 × 11 ÷ 2 = 66, which is 66 ÷ 15 = 4.4 times as many, while the number of people only doubled from 6 to 12.

The organisation divided the team into two teams of 6 people and appointed a leader for each, one of its members. The channels within the two teams became 15 + 15 = 30, with one channel between the two leaders, so the total is 31 channels, which is 31 ÷ 66 = 47% of the earlier number, and fewer by 66 minus 31, which is 35 channels. In the language of the classification this is taken as adding direct supervision to coordination that had rested on mutual adjustment alone.

The figures are hypothetical and were set to illustrate. They do not represent an organisation or a study. The example is an exercise of our own on how the cost of mutual adjustment rises with size, and it does not appear in Mintzberg in this form. It assumes that the channel between the leaders is the only channel between the two teams, a simplification that does not match real work, which needs more channels.

Reading an organisation’s way of working in the language of the configurations

A reader can start from two simple questions: who coordinates whose work, and by what means? Where employees say that what they do is settled by the word of their manager, that points to direct supervision. Where it is settled by a written procedure that is followed to the letter, it points to standardisation of processes. Where it is settled by what the employee learned in professional qualification, it points to standardisation of skills. Where people agree through renewed dialogue among themselves, it points to mutual adjustment.

This is a simplified reading of ours that opens the question and does not settle it, since a single organisation may use more than one means in different departments.

The limits of the classification

• A descriptive classification. It names patterns and does not say which pattern an organisation should choose, and the title of the 1980 article indicates a synthesis of earlier research and not a new field study.
• Abstract patterns. A configuration is a picture that gathers the dominant features, and we judge that real organisations combine features of more than one configuration.
• Differences among the sources. The secondary sources differ over the dominant parts and mechanisms for each configuration, so the original text should be consulted before relying on a particular table.
• The period of its formulation. The classification was set out in the late 1970s, and we judge that forms of work have changed since in ways the five names alone do not cover.
• The link to performance. In its common presentation the classification does not state that a particular configuration achieves a better result, and we do not state it either.

How the classification is misunderstood

• Taking “bureaucracy” in a name as blame. In the common presentation it describes a pattern of coordination.
• Classifying an organisation under a single configuration and then treating the classification as a result. The classification is a description and does not close the question of how an organisation actually works.
• Supposing that size decides the configuration. Size is one of the things the summaries mention in describing the configurations, and it is not the only one.
• Reading the chart alone. Boxes and lines do not show how coordination really happens, or who holds the decision.

The role of human resources

Human resources has the option of using the classification as a language for putting questions to managers about their organisation: how is work coordinated among people today, by dialogue, by direct supervision, by written procedures or by skills that are assumed to be uniform? Which part of the organisation holds the decision in practice? In the same language it has the option of examining the effect of a new post or a change in headcount on the way of coordination before it proposes a structure. Structural decisions stay with whoever holds them in management, and human resources contributes to them its knowledge of jobs and skills, not a structure set by human resources alone.

What the sources allow us to say

We do not state that a particular configuration succeeds more than another, or that an organisation moving from one configuration to another achieves a given result. We did not read Mintzberg’s book or his two articles, and in the sources we reviewed we found no Saudi study that we adopt on configurations in Saudi organisations.

The better course is to treat the classification as a language for describing the structures of organisations and their ways of coordination, and to judge any structural decision by what appears in the organisation concerned: whether decisions became faster, whether fewer decisions climb to the top, and whether it became clear who holds what. What is decided after that depends on the organisation, its work and its size.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.