Материал: Management-and-Organization-Behavior

Line and Staff Conflict

Line and staff relationship implies that both are complimentary in nature. However, there are frequent instances of conflict between line and staff in the organizations, resulting in friction. The various factors leading to line-staff conflict can be grouped into three categories: apprehensions of line managers, apprehensions of staff, and nature of line-staff relationship. Let us examine how these apprehensions generate conflict.

Apprehensions of Line Managers:

Line managers who are responsible for the final results leading to the achievement of organizational objectives, often criticize the staff manages on the following grounds:

i.Encroachment of Line Authority: Line managers often see a threat to their authority in the staff. They perceive that staff people encroach upon their authority by advising on matters which fall within their jurisdiction. Whenever there is such encroachment the result is resentment, hostility, and open or hidden reluctance to accept advice and recommendation.

ii.Dilution of Authority: Closely related to the earlier one is a feeling that staff people dilute line authority. Line managers fear that their responsibility will be reduced because of the addition of staff thereby making their job less challenging. Such a feeling of insecurity makes line manages suspicious of staff managers.

iii.Lack of Responsibility: The disparity between authority and responsibility and also between contributions and rewards is a source of jealousy between line and staff. Line managers often allege that staff people are not directly accountable for the results, but enjoy authority. Lack of responsibility makes them complacent and they do not care for the ultimate objectives of the organization. Further, line managers contend that they will be criticized if things go wrong, while the staff will get the rewards if things go well.

iv.Theoretical Bias: Often the advice and recommendation of staff people suffer from theoretical bias because of two reasons, First, they

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tend to think within the context of their won specialty, Second, as staff people are away from the actual operational scene, they are not able to fully appreciate the actual dimensions of the problems and their recommendations may not be practicable.

Apprehensions of Staff Managers

Staff managers also have their share of grievances against line managers. They find fault with line managers on the following grounds:

i.Resistance to New ideas: Staff managers at times may come out with new and novel ideas. Line managers often resist such ideas because new ideas mean that there is something wrong with their present way of working. Thus new ideas are treated as fault-finding devices in their operation. Because line people are reluctant to new ideas, many of the efforts of staff people go waste.

ii.Lack of Proper Use of Staff: Staff people content that line managers do not make proper use of their services and decisions are made without inputs from staff. They are informed after the action has been taken. By virtue of his position, a line manager can accept, amend, or reject the advice of staff irrespective of its quality and practicability. Further, when something goes wrong, staff person from concerned field is made the scapegoat.

iii.Lack of Proper Authority: Staff people feel that they contribute substantially to organizational objectives, at times with no authority whatsoever. Line managers clearly hold most of the cards and enjoy enormous authority. In many cases, consultation of staff is only optional. As a result, staff specialists feel that if they have the best solution to a problem, they should have authority over line managers to force the solution.

Nature of Line-Staff Relationship

In addition to the factors discussed so far, following inherent characteristics of line and staff relationship also contribute to conflicts and tensions.

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i.Lack of demarcation between line and staff: The differences between line and staff authority seem to be clear in theory only. In practice, they are neither clearly understood nor practiced. There is always a possibility for overlap and gap in authority and responsibility which can affect personal relationships.

ii.Divergent Backgrounds: Line and staff-people significantly vary in respect of backgrounds and individual characteristics. Staff people are generally younger, better educated, more poised in social interaction, more articulate and individualistic. As a result, they often look down on the less educated line people who must have worked their way up through the organization. These differences create an atmosphere of mistrust and hatred between them.

Achieving Harmony between Line and Staff

The effectiveness of line people depends to a large extent on how they make use of staff. Staff people are needed in the organizations because line people may not able to solve the problems which require specialized knowledge. For making proper use of staff, following points are important:

i.Staff people should be involved right from the initial stages of planning of an activity rather than when the problem becomes critical. When they are involved at the level of planning, many of the problems may not arise.

ii.In order to make proper use of staff, they should not be kept busy in unimportant work because it does not serve any meaningful purpose. Instead, they should be assigned critical work in the area of their specialty.

iii.There should be encouragement and education to line people as to how to make maximum use of staff effectively. Line people can not make use of staff unless they know what a specialist can do for them. At the same time, staff people also have a responsibility to let line people know how they can contribute for the better performance of line activities.

iv.If line people take some actions directly affecting staff activities without consulting staff people, they should be informed immediately

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about such actions. The information will help in removing misunderstandings, if any, created in the minds of staff people.

Review Questions:

1.Critically examine the line and staff authority concepts with the help of a few examples.

2.Line-staff conflict occurs for many reasons. Examine the following adages; “staff should be on tap, not tap”, and “staff should sell, not tell”.

3.Describe the difference between the advisory authority, concurrent authority and functional authority.

4.What are the important sources of conflict between line and staff managers? How do you resolve the conflicts?

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Lesson - 12 : Emerging Trends In Corporate Structure

Objectives

After reading this lesson, you should be able to:

ӹӹUnderstand The Influence Of Strategy And Culture On The Design Of Organization Structure;

ӹӹCapture The Impact Of Technology On The Organization Structure; And

ӹӹKnow The Differences Between Mechanistic And Organic Structures.

Lesson outline

ӹӹOrganization Design In Future

ӹӹStrategy And Organization Design

ӹӹImpact Of Environment On Design

ӹӹMechanistic Vs. Organic Structure

ӹӹReview Questions

For many years the fundamental structure underlying organization design has been the classic pyramid. Although it still plays a major role, some authors suggest that organization design in the future will be characterized by four basic differences from today’s pyramid-oriented structures and will exhibit:

-- A less number of management levels -- Adhocracy and porous departments -- Systems decoupled from the structure

-- The sharing of resources rather than the dividing them

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