Staff line organization
The staff line organization or the staff line system is a form of the single line system that has been expanded to include staff positions . It was introduced to relieve the line authorities and to make the superiors less dependent on the subordinate area. The staff instructs and advises the assigned superior. However, based on the idea, the staffs have no authority to issue instructions to the area that is subordinate to the superior.
The advantage of the relief is the disadvantage that this form of organization generates higher costs than the single-line system and may lead to conflicts between staff and the line.
history
The history of the staff idea can be traced far back in history.
On the one hand, one can cite the Roman Catholic Church , whose central church administration in Rome was supported by the College of Cardinals and the Curia . H. who were available to the Pope as helpers and advisers on special issues.
On the other hand, one can make out a military origin. For example, during the Thirty Years' War , King Gustav Adolf of Sweden introduced staff units for the first time to relieve the officers of his army from exploration and analysis activities and to keep them free for the actual decision-making tasks. Later, after the defeat against the French Emperor Napoleon I, the Prussian military also used this form of organization to relieve their generals. In this direction the General Staff developed .
An adoption of the staff principle on the economy began at the beginning of the 20th century, in the course of the development of the one- line system . This had the disadvantage, among other things, that all information came together for the managers, they had to make all the decisions and were therefore often overwhelmed.
advantages
As with the one- line system, every employee has exactly one superior; the use of specialists (staff) increases the quality of decisions and the dependency of the superior is largely shifted from his employees to the staff position. By including staff units, the line instances as well as the managers are relieved without interfering with their decision-making powers. By using the special knowledge of the staff and the overview of the line, a meaningful balance of the decision quality is created and there is an increased ability to coordinate compared to the line organization.
disadvantage
Although the staff units have no decision-making authority, in practice there is a certain degree of decision-making authority over the line managers due to their superior expertise. There can be a conflict between line and bar e.g. B. arise from an unauthorized exercise of power by the staff, and the transparency of the decision-making process is lost. This, and the selective transfer of information, creates the risk of manipulation. Compared to a line organization, the staff line organization is much more expensive. The authoritarian leadership behavior is strengthened since superiors no longer depend on advice from subordinates. Oversized staff structures can slow down decision-making processes.
But even in the event that the supervisor could competently assess the work of the staff, he still has the incentive, due to lack of time or convenience, to leave the implementation of the specialist area more or less completely to the staff and no longer make the technical decisions himself and to communicate ("de facto authorization"). The consequence then is that the staff de facto takes over the technical management and the staff line system degenerates into a de facto multi-line system . However, since the staff has no authority, sooner or later a stalemate is the result: If the subordinates disagree with the staff, then they do not implement its ideas, but out of collegiality with the staff do not report the conflict to the superior, what then leads to a standstill unnoticed by the superior. Preventing this from happening requires an established bureaucracy that provides that the superior must take note of the staff's suggestions and make the decision and communicate it. In contrast to bureaucratic state organizations, this is often lacking in unbureaucratic private SMEs.
Compared to line positions that contribute to the achievement of production goals, existential fears arise for staff positions because their work is not rewarded and thus appears subordinate. Because of the great dependency, rods try to adapt to the behavior of the lines and prefer solutions that contribute to the success of the line.
application
One could assume that the advantages of staff formation diminish where the organization itself is already highly differentiated and the tasks to be mastered are heterogeneous. On the other hand, it has been shown that especially in large organizations there is a need for staff support from management. The dilemma that arises here for all large organizations advises the formation of administrative units that are as manageable as possible.
This form of organization is very widespread in the form of the staff department in the military and the police. In addition, it is often preferred to the single-line system in medium-sized and larger companies because it relieves the burden on managers.
Examples of staff positions in companies
Examples of staff positions in companies are often:
- the company data protection officer
- Market research as a sales / marketing department
- IT (especially for SMEs )
- Legal body or judicial officers
- Internal auditing as a staff position for the management board, supervisory board or audit committee
- Corporate planning as a staff position of the management
- Equal Opportunities Officer as a staff unit for human resources
- Specialist for occupational safety and company doctors
Individual evidence
- ^ Staff line organization - definition in the Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon
- ^ Rainer Bergmann, Martin Garrecht: Organization and Project Management (BA Compact) , Physica-Verlag, 1st edition, 2008, ISBN 3790820172 , page 66, 3.3.3. Staff line organization
- ^ Georg Schreyögg: Organization , 5th edition, Gabler, ISBN 978-3-8349-0703-5 , page 125, focus 3.5 On the history of the staff-line organization
- ^ Hill / Fehlbaum / Ulrich: Organization1 , 5th edition, Haupt, pp. 213-217.
- ^ Hill / Fehlbaum / Ulrich: Organization1 , 5th edition, Haupt, pp. 213-217.
- ^ Rolf Bühner : Business management organization theory . 10th edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, p. 138 ff. ( Excerpts from googlebooks )
- ↑ 2.2.3.3 Staff / Line Organization - The organization of public administrations, by Iryna Spektor
- ↑ MoBaPo.net - staff line organization - application
Web links
- Staff line organization - definition in the Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon