Lateral Structures in Business Organizations and Which Traits They Research Paper

Lateral Structures in Business Organizations and Which Traits They Encourage - Research Paper Example The main purpose of the research is to present that organizations have increasingly begun to prefer the utilization of lateral relationships as legitimate avenues of information as a new generation of organizational forms has emerged. In this piece, what will be explained are a number of different lateral structural arrangements which are in use in organizations today, including but not limited to the following: role differentiation and role ‘incongruency’; the concept of coherence; and functionality. Role differentiation is important in lateral business structures. According to Tjosvold, â€Å"It is a myth that all team members must be cross-trained†. In contrast, rather, it tends to be the case that—in lateral organizational business structures—the employees find that their own roles are created specifically so that they can work independently. However, this is not at the risk of teams working hierarchically, but side-by-side. The way that role dif ferentiation differs in lateral business organizations versus hierarchical business organizations is that, in lateral ones, roles are distinctly defined. In hierarchical organizations, roles can be blurred, employees multi-task, and departments are formed which work on top of each other—the most powerful being at the top, with the least economically powerful at the bottom although their production is high. Obviously, one of the important issues that lateral business structures bring to the forefront is that there is incongruency in these structures. According to Robinson-Crowley, â€Å"A current trend in management research and practice is to design organizations to be congruent with the demands of the†¦information-processing capacity: investing in information systems and creating boundary-spanning roles† (pp. 84). Of course, this tome about boundary-spanning roles was written 14 years ago. Now, into the second decade of the 21st century in the United States, we a re definitely at the point where different styles of management have come into the fray. Good management will ultimately be able to deal with these hierarchical changes that are different from what we were used to almost a decade-and-a-half ago. According to Poole, â€Å"Top managers are highly visible and provide a vision for the future that employees can share†. Role differentiation and role incongruency are two issues, obviously, that comes from having a laterally-structured business organization. Role differentiation in laterally-organized businesses makes it easier for people to connect and not to feel as much like outsiders. Despite what many might think, role differentiation is well-known across hundreds of nations all over the world. Role differentiation has been around for several centuries and has a very important meaning in the lives of many. It would be safe to assume that role differentiation is going to be around for a long time and have an enormous impact on th e lives of many people. Role differentiation has a large role in American culture. Many people can often be seen taking part in activities associated with role differentiation. This is partly because people of most ages can be involved and families are brought together by this. Generally, a person who displays their dislike for role differentiation may be considered an outcast. This is why role differentiation is somewhat controversial to be considered as part of the lateral structure within a business organization. It is not common practice to associate economical factors with role differentiation. Generally, role differentiation would be thought to have no effect on our economic situation, but there are in fact some effects. Primarily, however, it would be safe to say that role differentiation plays an important role in the American economy and shouldn't be taken for granted. After having completed much research, it has been possible to conclude that