Line and staff — Jawn Lam

A single chain of command (the line) does and decides the work, while specialist staff units advise it without command authority.

What it is

Line and staff keeps one chain of command and sets advisers beside it. The line is the chain of managers who run the work and give orders. The staff are specialist units at each level that study problems, design standards, and advise the manager they serve, without commanding the line.

Line and staff sets advisers beside one chain of command

Select a unit or a letter to read it; the key above the drawing names the lines and letters used.

Reports toAdvises, or reports indirectlyDDirect supervisionWStandardization of work processes

Select a unit or a letter to read it. D, direct supervision: One person takes responsibility for the work of others, giving instructions and monitoring their actions. W, standardization of work processes: The content of the work is specified or programmed in advance, usually by analysts.Top line manager. Layer: Top of the line. Reports to no one. Heads the single chain of command; the staff extend this manager's capacity without dividing command, so decisions stay with the line.Line unit, by function. Layer: Line managers and staff. Reports to Top line manager. By function or by product. A line unit grouped by function; the form allows function or product, since it is defined by its kind of authority and leaves the basis open.Line unit, by product. Layer: Line managers and staff. Reports to Top line manager. By function or by product. A line unit grouped by product, run by a manager who keeps a broad command role and decides whether to take the staff's advice.Staff unit. Layer: Line managers and staff. Reports to Top line manager. Specialists who study problems, design standards, and advise the manager they serve, reaching across line units on their subject, without commanding the line.Line manager. Layer: Lower levels. Reports to Line unit, by product. The next link of an unbroken scalar chain; how many levels the line has depends on size.Staff unit. Layer: Lower levels. Reports to Line manager. Staff are attached at each level of the line, here advising a manager lower down.D, direct supervision. One person takes responsibility for the work of others, giving instructions and monitoring their actions.W, standardization of work processes. The content of the work is specified or programmed in advance, usually by analysts.

The structure in words

Top of the line
- Top line manager, reports to no one, coordinated by direct supervision. Heads the single chain of command; the staff extend this manager's capacity without dividing command, so decisions stay with the line.
Line managers and staff
- Line unit, by function, reports to Top line manager, grouped by function or by product. A line unit grouped by function; the form allows function or product, since it is defined by its kind of authority and leaves the basis open.
- Line unit, by product, reports to Top line manager, grouped by function or by product. A line unit grouped by product, run by a manager who keeps a broad command role and decides whether to take the staff's advice.
- Staff unit, reports to Top line manager. Specialists who study problems, design standards, and advise the manager they serve, reaching across line units on their subject, without commanding the line.
Lower levels (More in larger firms)
- Staff unit, reports to Line manager. Staff are attached at each level of the line, here advising a manager lower down.
- Line manager, reports to Line unit, by product. The next link of an unbroken scalar chain; how many levels the line has depends on size.

Staff unit and Line unit, by product: advises, or reports indirectly, coordinated by standardization of work processes.

The line is the chain of managers who run the work and give orders, each person with one boss. Staff units at each level study problems, design standards, and advise the manager they serve, and the line decides whether to use the advice.

Source: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943.

Down the line, managers supervise directly, each person with one boss; across it, staff standards coordinate the work, and the line decides whether to use the advice.

Its grouping spans function or process and product or purpose. Centralization is high. Decision rights span vertical and horizontal centralization and limited horizontal decentralization, our judgment: formal authority stays in the line, and no source read settles how much informal power staff gain. The coordinating mechanism spans direct supervision and standardization of work processes. Also judgment: specialization and formalization sit at medium; layers and span at moderate to tall; lateral mechanisms at direct contact and liaison roles; differentiation against integration at moderate; exchange at Ouchi's (1980) bureaucracy; and boundaries at closed.

Where the line-and-staff form sits on the eleven dimensions

The filled segments are the form's levels; select a row for its reason and sources.

Select a dimension to read why the form sits there, and on what basis.Basis of grouping: Function or process and product or purpose. Basis: Theory. Line units are grouped by function or by product, with advisory staff units attached at each level; the form's move is the kind of authority, not the basis. Sources: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943.Specialization: Medium. Basis: Judgment. Specialist staff units sit beside a line of managers who keep broad command roles; the band is judgment. Sources: Urwick 1943; Dale and Urwick 1960.Standardization and formalization: Medium. Basis: Judgment. The staff design standards the line applies, while the line keeps discretion over whether to use the advice; the band is judgment. Sources: Urwick 1943.Centralization: Centralized. Basis: Theory. The staff extends a senior manager's capacity without dividing command, so decisions stay with the line above. Sources: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943.Layers and span of control: Moderate to tall. Basis: Judgment. An unbroken scalar chain from top to bottom with staff attached at each level; how many levels depends on size, so the span is judgment. Sources: Fayol 1949.Decision rights and the locus of authority: Vertical and horizontal centralization to limited horizontal decentralization. Basis: Judgment. Formal authority stays in the line; how much informal power the advisers gain is the question Mintzberg's Type B answers for analysts, and no source read settles it for staff in general. Sources: Urwick 1943; Mintzberg 1980.Prime coordinating mechanism: Direct supervision and standardization of work processes. Basis: Theory. Direct supervision down the line under unity of command, plus the standards the staff design. Sources: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943.Lateral mechanisms: Direct contact and liaison roles. Basis: Judgment. Staff specialists reach across line units on their subject, and corporate staff hold larger, more integrative networks than line managers, though much of that comes from who is chosen for staff jobs. Sources: Urwick 1943; Kleinbaum and Stuart 2014.Differentiation against integration: Moderate differentiation, some integrating roles. Basis: Judgment. Staff and line differ in orientation and authority, and the line hierarchy joins them with the staff in an advisory role; the band is judgment. Sources: Urwick 1943.Mode of exchange and control: Bureaucracy. Basis: Judgment. An employment hierarchy run on command and advice, Ouchi's bureaucracy; no source places it, so this is judgment. Sources: Ouchi 1980; Fayol 1949.Boundary permeability: Closed. Basis: Judgment. Authority and information pass through the formal line, with the staff working inside it; judgment, as no source rates the form. Sources: Fayol 1949; Ashkenas and colleagues 1995.

Three of the eleven levels rest on theory, none on evidence, and eight on judgment. No row is contested.

Source: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943; Dale and Urwick 1960; Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Kleinbaum and Stuart 2014, one firm's network data; Ouchi 1980, a conceptual article; Ashkenas and colleagues 1995.

Where it came from

Dale and Urwick (1960) trace the staff idea to the general staff system of modern armies, as do Kieser and Kubicek (1992).

The schools of organization design and the forms' origins, 1900 to now

Each row is a school's era; each square under them is a form at its first year. Select a row or a square to read it; on a form's page, its own square and span are marked, with the schools that treat it.

The forms by first year

Schools that treat this form: Bureaucracy and its critics; Classical administration.

Select a school's row or a form's square to read it.Select a form's square to read it; open a school below.Bureaucracy and its critics1900s to 1950s, revived from the 1990sWhat it claimsWeber held that rational-legal authority exercised through an office hierarchy, written rules, trained officials, and promotion by qualification is technically superior in precision, speed, and reliability. Critics studied its unintended consequences, Michels's iron law sharpest.What it has shownMerton (1940) argued, with no test, that rules can turn from means into ends; case studies followed. The Aston group concluded that the type's dimensions vary independently, and Wagner's meta-analysis (2021) found that many of their interrelationships have weakened.Who disputes itHuman relations and System 4 sets the costs of impersonal rules to motivation and cooperation against the technical superiority Weber stresses.Bureaucracy and its critics in The Schools of Organization DesignClassical administration1910s to 1940s, and in German to the 1970sWhat it claimsThere are general principles of administration, among them division of work, unity of command, a scalar chain of authority, and a limited span of control, and a structure built to them will be efficient in most settings. Taylor added that planners should set work methods.What it has shownThe school offered reasoning and experience, not tests. Woodward (1965) found that the spans and levels of the more successful firms in her sample differed by production system, and Simon (1946) showed that the principles come in pairs that point in opposite directions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory found that the structure of successful firms varies with technology and environment, where classical writers treat their principles as general.Classical administration in The Schools of Organization DesignHuman relations and System 41920s to 1960sWhat it claimsOutput depends on the social relations of work, the norms of informal groups, and the style of supervision as much as on formal design. Likert's System 4, overlapping work groups joined by linking-pin managers under participative management, outperforms authoritative systems.What it has shownThe founding evidence is the Hawthorne studies, which later reanalyses dispute (Carey 1967; Levitt and List 2011). Likert's support came largely from his own institute's surveys. Wagner (1994) found participation's effects on performance and satisfaction significant but small.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads human relations as a technique of managerial control rather than a change in the distribution of power.Human relations and System 4 in The Schools of Organization DesignTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis1937, then the 1970s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms exist, and are organized as they are, to economize on transaction costs. Hierarchy replaces the market when assets are specific, uncertainty is high, and exchange is frequent, and the multidivisional form should outperform the functional form in large, diversified firms.What it has shownArmour and Teece (1978) found, in United States petroleum firms from 1955 to 1973, a positive relationship between the multidivisional form and profitability while the form was spreading, but not once an equilibrium in organizational form was reached.Who disputes itThe network perspective on organizations: Granovetter argued that the theory undersocializes economic action, which is embedded in networks of personal relations that also produce trust and order.Transaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view1940s to the presentWhat it claimsPeople in organizations are boundedly rational, so structure matters because it sets the premises of their decisions and channels their attention: who sees which problems, which goals they pursue, and which routines they follow. Ocasio makes structure distribute attention.What it has shownMarch and Simon (1958) drew propositions from the existing literature, and Cyert and March (1963) added process models and simulations. Two studies show hierarchy shaping what is sent up as well as what is chosen (Reitzig and Maciejovsky 2015; Keum and See 2017).Who disputes itOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities models a principal and agents with defined objectives; the Carnegie school, firms as coalitions with unresolved goal conflict.The Carnegie school and the attention-based view in The Schools of Organization DesignSocio-technical systems1950s to 1980sWhat it claimsAn organization is a social system and a technical system that must be designed together. The same technology admits more than one way of organizing work, and groups that own a whole task and control its variances at the source perform better and are more satisfied.What it has shownTrist and Bamforth (1951) found that longwall mechanization broke up self-regulating work groups. A review of 134 experiments found them extremely successful overall, and Stewart (2006) linked team autonomy to performance; studies of socialist brigades and Volkswagen qualify it.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory: Kelly argued that labor intensification, not joint optimization, accounts for what socio-technical redesign achieved, and that the part of pay incentives was seriously underestimated.Socio-technical systems in The Schools of Organization DesignThe economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership1958 to the presentWhat it claimsA firm run by its workers behaves differently from one run for investors: Ward modeled the Yugoslav-style firm as maximizing income per worker. Hansmann argued that an ownership form's success depends on the balance between the costs of market contracting and of ownership.What it has shownBurdín (2014) found a 29 percent lower hazard of dissolution for Uruguayan worker-managed firms than for conventional ones, and Fakhfakh, Pérotin, and Gago (2012) found French labor-managed firms as productive or more so in every industry studied.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Jensen and Meckling) contrasts the labor-managed firm, in which tradable residual claims are legally prohibited, with cooperatives and partnerships that arise out of voluntary contracting.The economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership in The Schools of Organization DesignModularity and the mirroring hypothesis1960s to the presentWhat it claimsComplex systems are built of nearly decomposable parts, and an organization's structure tends to mirror the architecture of what it makes: modular products allow loosely coupled organizations, and tightly coupled products need tightly coupled teams. Conway's law runs in reverse.What it has shownColfer and Baldwin (2016) review the empirical studies and report both support and principled exceptions. Direct tests point both ways: MacCormack, Baldwin, and Rusnak (2012) found open source products more modular than their commercial pairs; dynamic components break the mirror.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it answers information processing, which meets the coordination load inside the organization; mirroring writers locate it in the product's architecture.Modularity and the mirroring hypothesis in The Schools of Organization DesignStrategy and structure1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsStructure follows strategy: firms that diversify by product or geography outgrow the centralized functional structure and, after a lag and usually a crisis, adopt divisions. Chandler drew this from the histories of DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Sears.What it has shownChandler (1962) is comparative business history of four firms set against a wider survey. Rumelt (1974) related diversification and structure to performance, and Egelhoff (1988), with 34 multinationals, found some of Stopford and Wells's relationships supported and others not.Who disputes itInstitutional theory: in Fligstein's model divisions spread with a product-related or unrelated strategy, presidents from sales or finance, and other firms in the industry changing; strategy was one of three.Strategy and structure in The Schools of Organization DesignStructural contingency theory1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThere is no one best structure. Performance depends on fit between structure and contingencies such as environment, technology, size, and strategy, on an open-system view of the organization. Drazin and Van de Ven separate fit as selection, interaction, and systems.What it has shownBurns and Stalker, Woodward, and the Aston group related structure to context; Drazin and Van de Ven (1985) supported selection and systems fit only. Pennings (1975) found that fit did not explain effectiveness; Schoonhoven (1981) found traditional hypotheses unsupported.Who disputes itStrategic choice: Child argued that contingency theory explains structure by the constraints of context and leaves out the political process by which power-holders choose strategic action, structural forms included.Structural contingency theory in The Schools of Organization DesignThe French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis)1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsA bureaucracy is a system of power relations organized around zones of uncertainty. Impersonal rules and centralization protect members from depending on one another, those who control uncertainties hold power, and, unable to correct its errors, it changes only through crisis.What it has shownLe phénomène bureaucratique (1963; English 1964) rests on two case studies, a clerical agency and a state industrial monopoly. L'acteur et le système (1977; English 1980) is theoretical.Who disputes itSocietal effect and comparative business systems: D'Iribarne argues that national logics of conduct, such as a French logic of honor, explain differences that Crozier attributed to power games.The French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis) in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Japanese-firm literature1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThe large Japanese firm coordinates operating decisions through horizontal information sharing among semi-autonomous shops and uses its ranking hierarchy mainly as an incentive scheme (Aoki). It creates knowledge through middle-up-down management (Nonaka and Takeuchi).What it has shownAoki (1986) is a formal model. Lincoln, Hanada, and McBride (1986) compared 51 Japanese and 55 United States manufacturing plants, and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) rest on case studies, chiefly of Japanese firms. Fruin (1994) found the enterprise system defined at three levels.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads shop-floor delegation as control: Sewell and Wilkinson argue that just-in-time and total quality regimes delegate tactical responsibility while centralizing strategic control.The Japanese-firm literature in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools1960s to 2000sWhat it claimsThe Scandinavian program sought democracy at work through field experiments with semi-autonomous groups, then through democratic dialogue. The Dutch school's design theory turns complex organizations with simple jobs into simple organizations with complex jobs.What it has shownEmery and Thorsrud reported field experiments in Norwegian industry; Gustavsen (1992) records that they spread less than hoped, his reason for turning to dialogue. Berggren studied work organization in the Swedish auto industry. The Dutch work rests on design cases and argument.Who disputes itThe Japanese-firm literature: defenders of the Toyota system hold that standardized work with employee participation learns faster; Berggren reports Swedish long-cycle plants matching a line plant on productivity.The Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools in The Schools of Organization DesignConfiguration theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructures cluster into a small number of internally coherent configurations whose elements reinforce one another, so organizations move between a few types in large jumps, not small steps. Mintzberg's five configurations each rest on one coordinating mechanism.What it has shownDoty, Glick, and Huber (1993) found that fit to Miles and Snow's ideal types predicted effectiveness while fit to Mintzberg's did not. A meta-analysis of 40 tests (Ketchen and colleagues 1997) found that configuration partly explains performance, more so with broad definitions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson counters that most organizations sit at intermediate points on a continuum of fits, not in a few configurations, and that studies over time find mostly incremental change.Configuration theory in The Schools of Organization DesignInformation processing1970s to the presentWhat it claimsThe more uncertain the task, the more information must be processed during its execution. An organization either reduces that need, through slack resources or self-contained tasks, or raises its capacity, through vertical information systems or lateral relations up to the matrix.What it has shownGalbraith (1973, 1974) built the framework from cases and from Simon's theory of bounded rationality, and Tushman and Nadler (1978) set it out as an integrating concept for design. Daft and Lengel (1986) argued that structure must reduce equivocality as well as supply data.Who disputes itThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view: Ocasio holds that firm behavior results from how the firm channels and distributes attention, so structure governs where attention goes, not only how much is processed.Information processing in The Schools of Organization DesignLabor process and critical theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is above all a system of control over labor. Braverman argued that management deskills work by separating conception from execution; Edwards traced a sequence from simple control by the boss to technical control through machines to bureaucratic control through rules.What it has shownHistorical and theoretical (Braverman 1974; Edwards 1979). Delbridge (1995), observing a Japanese-owned plant in England, found that just-in-time and total quality regimes combined the control of labor with management's economic goals more completely than piece rates had.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: Adler argues that labor process theory ignores the progressive socialization of the labor process, which drives long-term skill upgrading, and disputes deskilling as the trend.Labor process and critical theory in The Schools of Organization DesignStrategic choice1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is the outcome of choices by those with power in the organization, who decide on strategic action, including the structural form, the manipulation of environmental features, and the performance standards to be met. Context constrains but does not determine structure.What it has shownLargely conceptual: Child (1972) built the argument from gaps in contingency findings, and the empirical case rests mostly on the modest share of structural variance contingencies explain. A 2026 review of 42 studies finds upper echelons theory their main theoretical anchor.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson replies that organizations mostly adopt the structures their contingencies dictate, to avoid the loss of performance misfit brings, so choice over structure is at most limited.Strategic choice in The Schools of Organization DesignThe German codetermination literature1970s to the presentWhat it claimsWorks councils and employee board seats form a structural layer through which coordination can become negotiation between management and employees. Defenders argue that it supports long-term employment, training, and cooperation; critics, that it weakens shareholder control.What it has shownJäger, Schoefer, and Heining (2021) found board-level codetermination left wages unchanged and, if anything, raised capital formation. Jirjahn (2011) reports studies pointing to positive works council effects; a meta-analysis found codetermination laws tied to lower productivity.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Gorton and Schmid) found that firms with equal employee and shareholder representation did worse for their shareholders than firms with one-third employee representation.The German codetermination literature in The Schools of Organization DesignOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities1976 to the presentWhat it claimsDesign is the joint choice of who holds which decision rights, how performance is measured, and how it is rewarded. Rights should be placed where the specific knowledge lies, formal authority differs from real authority, and practices are complements that pay off in clusters.What it has shownIchniowski, Shaw, and Prennushi (1997) found, on 36 steel finishing lines, that lines using a set of innovative work practices achieved substantially higher productivity, consistent with complementarities. Bloom and colleagues found more decentralization where trust was higher.Who disputes itGhoshal argued that management research has shaped managers' worldview with ideologically inspired amoral theories, built on a scientific model that excludes human intentionality and so denies moral considerations.Organizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities in The Schools of Organization DesignInstitutional theory1977 to the presentWhat it claimsFormal structures are often adopted because they are legitimate in the organization's field, as rationalized myths, and then decoupled from the work done. Organizations in a field grow alike through coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, whether or not it is efficient.What it has shownTolbert and Zucker (1983) found that city characteristics predicted early but not later adoption of civil service reform, which they read as institutionalization. Palmer, Jennings, and Zhou (1993) found support for institutional and economic accounts of late M-form adoption.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Kraatz and Zajac found little support for neoinstitutional predictions in 631 liberal arts colleges, which grew less alike; the change they studied was curricular, not structural.Institutional theory in The Schools of Organization DesignPopulation ecology1977 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations face strong structural inertia, because selection favors the reliability and accountability of stable structures. Change in a population's forms comes mainly from founding and failure, not adaptation, and changing core features resets the liability of newness.What it has shownAmburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993) found that the effects of change on the hazard of failure vary by type of change and over time, and that rates of change depend on how often and how recently an organization has changed. Carroll and Hannan (2000) set out the program's methods.Who disputes itFor structural contingency theory, Donaldson argues that ecology understates managers' capacity to adapt structure.Population ecology in The Schools of Organization DesignResource dependence1978 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations depend on outside parties for critical resources, and structure follows the management of that dependence: units that cope with critical dependencies gain power, and boundaries are redrawn through cooptation, joint ventures, and mergers to absorb constraint.What it has shownPfeffer and Salancik (1978) assembled studies of boards, mergers, and joint ventures. A meta-analysis of 157 tests (Drees and Heugens 2013) corroborated the main prediction: organizations meet resource dependencies with interorganizational arrangements that raise their autonomy.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis explains boundaries by efficiency; resource dependence, by power and constraint.Resource dependence in The Schools of Organization DesignThe business-groups literature1978 to the presentWhat it claimsGroups of legally independent firms bound by ownership and social ties are a durable form of their own, neither one firm nor a market. Where institutions function poorly, groups can benefit member firms and can destroy value; they are sometimes paragons, sometimes parasites.What it has shownKhanna and Palepu (2000) found that affiliates of the most diversified Indian groups outperformed unaffiliated firms. A meta-analysis of 141 studies (Carney and colleagues 2011) found that affiliation lowers performance in general, less so where institutions are underdeveloped.Who disputes itOrganizational economics: agency writers read pyramids and cross-holdings as devices that separate control from ownership; Almeida and Wolfenzon offer a financing rationale for pyramids instead.The business-groups literature in The Schools of Organization DesignScandinavian institutionalism1980s to the presentWhat it claimsIdeas of organizing do not diffuse unchanged; they travel and are translated as they are adopted, so a form taken up in one place is not the same form elsewhere. Organizations can also be built of organizations (meta-organizations), which behave differently.What it has shownA discussion paper by Czarniawska and Joerges (1995) contrasts the diffusion of ideas with their translation, drawing on examples such as Swedish municipal reform; the work on meta-organizations (Ahrne and Brunsson 2008) is conceptual.Who disputes itInstitutional theory can read the same processes, seen from a translocal view, as institutional isomorphism, though translation holds that each adopter modifies an idea, so an institution re-created elsewhere is new.Scandinavian institutionalism in The Schools of Organization DesignSocietal effect and comparative business systems1980s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms matched on size, technology, and industry differ systematically by country, because how a society educates, trains, recruits, and promotes its workforce, and its industrial relations, shape how work is divided and supervised, so structure is partly a national product.What it has shownMaurice, Sorge, and Warner (1980) compared closely matched manufacturing units in France, West Germany, and Great Britain and found more pervasive differences in their organization than usually recognized. Whitley (1999) set out a comparative account of business systems.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory stresses culture-free elements of structure; matched comparisons find nationally different shapes of organization.Societal effect and comparative business systems in The Schools of Organization DesignThe network perspective on organizations1985 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations and their members are nodes joined by ties, and the pattern of ties shapes what they can do. Economic action is embedded in networks of personal relations (Granovetter 1985), and network forms are a distinct form, not a hybrid of market and hierarchy (Powell 1990).What it has shownPodolny and Page (1998) review the research and find that network forms foster learning, confer status and legitimacy, bring economic benefits, help manage resource dependencies, and give employees considerable autonomy, and they ask for attention to networks' dysfunctions.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics: Williamson treats the hybrid as a third generic form between market and hierarchy; for Powell, network forms are a distinct form, not a mix of the two.The network perspective on organizations in The Schools of Organization DesignComputational organization design and search1990s to the presentWhat it claimsDesign choices interact, so design space is a rugged landscape with many local peaks, and structure affects how well an organization searches it. Decentralizing interdependent decisions can trap units on poor peaks; temporary decentralization, then reintegration, can help.What it has shownMostly simulation, with one field test: Csaszar (2012), with more than 150,000 stock-picking decisions by 609 mutual funds, found that decision-making structure affects the number of initiatives pursued and the omission and commission errors made.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it disputes structural contingency theory, whose bivariate fit, its simulations show, cannot capture how the best design depends on interactions among choices.Computational organization design and search in The Schools of Organization DesignThe new-forms debate1990s to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations must solve four universal problems (dividing tasks, allocating them, providing rewards, and providing information), and a form is new when it solves them in new ways. Self-managing organizations radically decentralize authority; skeptics hold hierarchy reappears.What it has shownFoss (2003) traced the rise and partial reversal of Oticon's spaghetti organization to the problem of selective intervention. A meta-analysis of 54 studies of 13,914 teams (Greer and colleagues 2018) found that hierarchy within teams on net slightly lowers team performance.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: removing formal structure leaves informal elites whose power is unaccountable (Freeman), and democratic and network organizations are much less hierarchy-free than their labels suggest.The new-forms debate in The Schools of Organization DesignThe algorithmic-management literature2015 to the presentWhat it claimsSoftware does much of the directing, evaluating, and disciplining that managers and rules once did. Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin (2020) call algorithmic control a new contested terrain; Puranam (2021) treats dividing decisions between people and machines as a design problem.What it has shownMostly qualitative field studies of gig work. Wood and colleagues (2019), with 107 interviews in six countries and 679 survey respondents, found that algorithmic management tends to give remote gig workers flexibility and autonomy, but also low pay, isolation, and overwork.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads control at work as contested terrain; Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin take up that view but argue that algorithmic control is distinct from earlier forms.The algorithmic-management literature in The Schools of Organization DesignFunctional structureOrigin: 1911 to 1937.Family: Classical hierarchies.Line and staffOrigin: 1916 to 1943.Family: Classical hierarchies.Multidivisional (M-form) by productOrigin: 1920s practice; named and analyzed 1962 to 1975.Family: Divisionalized forms.Machine bureaucracyOrigin: 1922 (Weber); 1979 (Mintzberg).Family: Classical hierarchies.Divisional by customer or market segmentOrigin: 1937; 2005.Family: Divisionalized forms.Matrix organizationOrigin: 1950s to 1960s practice; analyzed 1971 to 1977.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Co-determined organizationOrigin: 1951 to 1976 (the laws); 1984 to 2022 (the main studies).Family: Forms from other traditions.Socio-technical autonomous work groupsOrigin: 1951 to 1965.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Stratified hierarchy (requisite organization)Origin: 1951 to 1989.Family: Classical hierarchies.Cooperative organizationOrigin: 1958 to 1999.Family: Forms from other traditions.Linking-pin organization (System 4)Origin: 1961 to 1967.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Divisional by regionOrigin: 1962 to 1972.Family: Divisionalized forms.Adhocracy (innovative organization)Origin: 1968 to 1979.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.J-form (the Japanese firm)Origin: 1968 to 1990.Family: Forms from other traditions.Professional bureaucracyOrigin: 1968 to 1979.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Holding company (H-form)Origin: 1972 to 1975; 1987.Family: Divisionalized forms.Ambidextrous organizationOrigin: 1976 to 2004.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Simple structureOrigin: 1979.Family: Classical hierarchies.Hybrid structureOrigin: 1980 to the present.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Missionary (ideological) organizationOrigin: 1980 to 1989.Family: Ideological forms.Network, modular, and virtual organizationOrigin: 1986 to 1990.Family: Network and market-like forms.Transnational and multidimensional organizationOrigin: 1987 to 1989.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Business group (keiretsu, chaebol, family house)Origin: 1988 to 2007.Family: Forms from other traditions.Shamrock organizationOrigin: 1988 to 1989.Family: Network and market-like forms.Federal organizationOrigin: 1989 to 1992.Family: Network and market-like forms.Self-managing organization (less-hierarchical forms)Origin: 1989 to 2017.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Boundaryless organizationOrigin: 1990 to 1995.Family: Network and market-like forms.Front-back organizationOrigin: 1990s to 2007.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Professional partnership (P2 form)Origin: 1990.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.The corporate center and shared servicesOrigin: 1991 to 2000.Family: Divisionalized forms.Internal market organizationOrigin: 1993 to 1994.Family: Network and market-like forms.Process (horizontal) organizationOrigin: 1993 to 1999.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Cellular organizationOrigin: 1994 to 1997.Family: Network and market-like forms.Hypertext organizationOrigin: 1994 to 1995.Family: Forms from other traditions.Team-based organizationOrigin: 1995.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Project-based organizationOrigin: 2000 to 2006.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Agile at scaleOrigin: 2001 to 2016.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Distributed (all-remote) organizationOrigin: 2002 to 2021.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Open-source and community-based organizationOrigin: 2002 to 2007.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Algorithmically managed organizationOrigin: 2015 to 2020.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Team of teamsOrigin: 2015.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.

The schools by first year

Bureaucracy and its critics1900s to 1950s, revived from the 1990sWhat it claimsWeber held that rational-legal authority exercised through an office hierarchy, written rules, trained officials, and promotion by qualification is technically superior in precision, speed, and reliability. Critics studied its unintended consequences, Michels's iron law sharpest.What it has shownMerton (1940) argued, with no test, that rules can turn from means into ends; case studies followed. The Aston group concluded that the type's dimensions vary independently, and Wagner's meta-analysis (2021) found that many of their interrelationships have weakened.Who disputes itHuman relations and System 4 sets the costs of impersonal rules to motivation and cooperation against the technical superiority Weber stresses.
Classical administration1910s to 1940s, and in German to the 1970sWhat it claimsThere are general principles of administration, among them division of work, unity of command, a scalar chain of authority, and a limited span of control, and a structure built to them will be efficient in most settings. Taylor added that planners should set work methods.What it has shownThe school offered reasoning and experience, not tests. Woodward (1965) found that the spans and levels of the more successful firms in her sample differed by production system, and Simon (1946) showed that the principles come in pairs that point in opposite directions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory found that the structure of successful firms varies with technology and environment, where classical writers treat their principles as general.
Human relations and System 41920s to 1960sWhat it claimsOutput depends on the social relations of work, the norms of informal groups, and the style of supervision as much as on formal design. Likert's System 4, overlapping work groups joined by linking-pin managers under participative management, outperforms authoritative systems.What it has shownThe founding evidence is the Hawthorne studies, which later reanalyses dispute (Carey 1967; Levitt and List 2011). Likert's support came largely from his own institute's surveys. Wagner (1994) found participation's effects on performance and satisfaction significant but small.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads human relations as a technique of managerial control rather than a change in the distribution of power.
Transaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis1937, then the 1970s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms exist, and are organized as they are, to economize on transaction costs. Hierarchy replaces the market when assets are specific, uncertainty is high, and exchange is frequent, and the multidivisional form should outperform the functional form in large, diversified firms.What it has shownArmour and Teece (1978) found, in United States petroleum firms from 1955 to 1973, a positive relationship between the multidivisional form and profitability while the form was spreading, but not once an equilibrium in organizational form was reached.Who disputes itThe network perspective on organizations: Granovetter argued that the theory undersocializes economic action, which is embedded in networks of personal relations that also produce trust and order.
The Carnegie school and the attention-based view1940s to the presentWhat it claimsPeople in organizations are boundedly rational, so structure matters because it sets the premises of their decisions and channels their attention: who sees which problems, which goals they pursue, and which routines they follow. Ocasio makes structure distribute attention.What it has shownMarch and Simon (1958) drew propositions from the existing literature, and Cyert and March (1963) added process models and simulations. Two studies show hierarchy shaping what is sent up as well as what is chosen (Reitzig and Maciejovsky 2015; Keum and See 2017).Who disputes itOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities models a principal and agents with defined objectives; the Carnegie school, firms as coalitions with unresolved goal conflict.
Socio-technical systems1950s to 1980sWhat it claimsAn organization is a social system and a technical system that must be designed together. The same technology admits more than one way of organizing work, and groups that own a whole task and control its variances at the source perform better and are more satisfied.What it has shownTrist and Bamforth (1951) found that longwall mechanization broke up self-regulating work groups. A review of 134 experiments found them extremely successful overall, and Stewart (2006) linked team autonomy to performance; studies of socialist brigades and Volkswagen qualify it.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory: Kelly argued that labor intensification, not joint optimization, accounts for what socio-technical redesign achieved, and that the part of pay incentives was seriously underestimated.
The economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership1958 to the presentWhat it claimsA firm run by its workers behaves differently from one run for investors: Ward modeled the Yugoslav-style firm as maximizing income per worker. Hansmann argued that an ownership form's success depends on the balance between the costs of market contracting and of ownership.What it has shownBurdín (2014) found a 29 percent lower hazard of dissolution for Uruguayan worker-managed firms than for conventional ones, and Fakhfakh, Pérotin, and Gago (2012) found French labor-managed firms as productive or more so in every industry studied.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Jensen and Meckling) contrasts the labor-managed firm, in which tradable residual claims are legally prohibited, with cooperatives and partnerships that arise out of voluntary contracting.
Modularity and the mirroring hypothesis1960s to the presentWhat it claimsComplex systems are built of nearly decomposable parts, and an organization's structure tends to mirror the architecture of what it makes: modular products allow loosely coupled organizations, and tightly coupled products need tightly coupled teams. Conway's law runs in reverse.What it has shownColfer and Baldwin (2016) review the empirical studies and report both support and principled exceptions. Direct tests point both ways: MacCormack, Baldwin, and Rusnak (2012) found open source products more modular than their commercial pairs; dynamic components break the mirror.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it answers information processing, which meets the coordination load inside the organization; mirroring writers locate it in the product's architecture.
Strategy and structure1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsStructure follows strategy: firms that diversify by product or geography outgrow the centralized functional structure and, after a lag and usually a crisis, adopt divisions. Chandler drew this from the histories of DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Sears.What it has shownChandler (1962) is comparative business history of four firms set against a wider survey. Rumelt (1974) related diversification and structure to performance, and Egelhoff (1988), with 34 multinationals, found some of Stopford and Wells's relationships supported and others not.Who disputes itInstitutional theory: in Fligstein's model divisions spread with a product-related or unrelated strategy, presidents from sales or finance, and other firms in the industry changing; strategy was one of three.
Structural contingency theory1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThere is no one best structure. Performance depends on fit between structure and contingencies such as environment, technology, size, and strategy, on an open-system view of the organization. Drazin and Van de Ven separate fit as selection, interaction, and systems.What it has shownBurns and Stalker, Woodward, and the Aston group related structure to context; Drazin and Van de Ven (1985) supported selection and systems fit only. Pennings (1975) found that fit did not explain effectiveness; Schoonhoven (1981) found traditional hypotheses unsupported.Who disputes itStrategic choice: Child argued that contingency theory explains structure by the constraints of context and leaves out the political process by which power-holders choose strategic action, structural forms included.
The French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis)1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsA bureaucracy is a system of power relations organized around zones of uncertainty. Impersonal rules and centralization protect members from depending on one another, those who control uncertainties hold power, and, unable to correct its errors, it changes only through crisis.What it has shownLe phénomène bureaucratique (1963; English 1964) rests on two case studies, a clerical agency and a state industrial monopoly. L'acteur et le système (1977; English 1980) is theoretical.Who disputes itSocietal effect and comparative business systems: D'Iribarne argues that national logics of conduct, such as a French logic of honor, explain differences that Crozier attributed to power games.
The Japanese-firm literature1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThe large Japanese firm coordinates operating decisions through horizontal information sharing among semi-autonomous shops and uses its ranking hierarchy mainly as an incentive scheme (Aoki). It creates knowledge through middle-up-down management (Nonaka and Takeuchi).What it has shownAoki (1986) is a formal model. Lincoln, Hanada, and McBride (1986) compared 51 Japanese and 55 United States manufacturing plants, and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) rest on case studies, chiefly of Japanese firms. Fruin (1994) found the enterprise system defined at three levels.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads shop-floor delegation as control: Sewell and Wilkinson argue that just-in-time and total quality regimes delegate tactical responsibility while centralizing strategic control.
The Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools1960s to 2000sWhat it claimsThe Scandinavian program sought democracy at work through field experiments with semi-autonomous groups, then through democratic dialogue. The Dutch school's design theory turns complex organizations with simple jobs into simple organizations with complex jobs.What it has shownEmery and Thorsrud reported field experiments in Norwegian industry; Gustavsen (1992) records that they spread less than hoped, his reason for turning to dialogue. Berggren studied work organization in the Swedish auto industry. The Dutch work rests on design cases and argument.Who disputes itThe Japanese-firm literature: defenders of the Toyota system hold that standardized work with employee participation learns faster; Berggren reports Swedish long-cycle plants matching a line plant on productivity.
Configuration theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructures cluster into a small number of internally coherent configurations whose elements reinforce one another, so organizations move between a few types in large jumps, not small steps. Mintzberg's five configurations each rest on one coordinating mechanism.What it has shownDoty, Glick, and Huber (1993) found that fit to Miles and Snow's ideal types predicted effectiveness while fit to Mintzberg's did not. A meta-analysis of 40 tests (Ketchen and colleagues 1997) found that configuration partly explains performance, more so with broad definitions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson counters that most organizations sit at intermediate points on a continuum of fits, not in a few configurations, and that studies over time find mostly incremental change.
Information processing1970s to the presentWhat it claimsThe more uncertain the task, the more information must be processed during its execution. An organization either reduces that need, through slack resources or self-contained tasks, or raises its capacity, through vertical information systems or lateral relations up to the matrix.What it has shownGalbraith (1973, 1974) built the framework from cases and from Simon's theory of bounded rationality, and Tushman and Nadler (1978) set it out as an integrating concept for design. Daft and Lengel (1986) argued that structure must reduce equivocality as well as supply data.Who disputes itThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view: Ocasio holds that firm behavior results from how the firm channels and distributes attention, so structure governs where attention goes, not only how much is processed.
Labor process and critical theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is above all a system of control over labor. Braverman argued that management deskills work by separating conception from execution; Edwards traced a sequence from simple control by the boss to technical control through machines to bureaucratic control through rules.What it has shownHistorical and theoretical (Braverman 1974; Edwards 1979). Delbridge (1995), observing a Japanese-owned plant in England, found that just-in-time and total quality regimes combined the control of labor with management's economic goals more completely than piece rates had.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: Adler argues that labor process theory ignores the progressive socialization of the labor process, which drives long-term skill upgrading, and disputes deskilling as the trend.
Strategic choice1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is the outcome of choices by those with power in the organization, who decide on strategic action, including the structural form, the manipulation of environmental features, and the performance standards to be met. Context constrains but does not determine structure.What it has shownLargely conceptual: Child (1972) built the argument from gaps in contingency findings, and the empirical case rests mostly on the modest share of structural variance contingencies explain. A 2026 review of 42 studies finds upper echelons theory their main theoretical anchor.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson replies that organizations mostly adopt the structures their contingencies dictate, to avoid the loss of performance misfit brings, so choice over structure is at most limited.
The German codetermination literature1970s to the presentWhat it claimsWorks councils and employee board seats form a structural layer through which coordination can become negotiation between management and employees. Defenders argue that it supports long-term employment, training, and cooperation; critics, that it weakens shareholder control.What it has shownJäger, Schoefer, and Heining (2021) found board-level codetermination left wages unchanged and, if anything, raised capital formation. Jirjahn (2011) reports studies pointing to positive works council effects; a meta-analysis found codetermination laws tied to lower productivity.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Gorton and Schmid) found that firms with equal employee and shareholder representation did worse for their shareholders than firms with one-third employee representation.
Organizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities1976 to the presentWhat it claimsDesign is the joint choice of who holds which decision rights, how performance is measured, and how it is rewarded. Rights should be placed where the specific knowledge lies, formal authority differs from real authority, and practices are complements that pay off in clusters.What it has shownIchniowski, Shaw, and Prennushi (1997) found, on 36 steel finishing lines, that lines using a set of innovative work practices achieved substantially higher productivity, consistent with complementarities. Bloom and colleagues found more decentralization where trust was higher.Who disputes itGhoshal argued that management research has shaped managers' worldview with ideologically inspired amoral theories, built on a scientific model that excludes human intentionality and so denies moral considerations.
Institutional theory1977 to the presentWhat it claimsFormal structures are often adopted because they are legitimate in the organization's field, as rationalized myths, and then decoupled from the work done. Organizations in a field grow alike through coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, whether or not it is efficient.What it has shownTolbert and Zucker (1983) found that city characteristics predicted early but not later adoption of civil service reform, which they read as institutionalization. Palmer, Jennings, and Zhou (1993) found support for institutional and economic accounts of late M-form adoption.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Kraatz and Zajac found little support for neoinstitutional predictions in 631 liberal arts colleges, which grew less alike; the change they studied was curricular, not structural.
Population ecology1977 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations face strong structural inertia, because selection favors the reliability and accountability of stable structures. Change in a population's forms comes mainly from founding and failure, not adaptation, and changing core features resets the liability of newness.What it has shownAmburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993) found that the effects of change on the hazard of failure vary by type of change and over time, and that rates of change depend on how often and how recently an organization has changed. Carroll and Hannan (2000) set out the program's methods.Who disputes itFor structural contingency theory, Donaldson argues that ecology understates managers' capacity to adapt structure.
Resource dependence1978 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations depend on outside parties for critical resources, and structure follows the management of that dependence: units that cope with critical dependencies gain power, and boundaries are redrawn through cooptation, joint ventures, and mergers to absorb constraint.What it has shownPfeffer and Salancik (1978) assembled studies of boards, mergers, and joint ventures. A meta-analysis of 157 tests (Drees and Heugens 2013) corroborated the main prediction: organizations meet resource dependencies with interorganizational arrangements that raise their autonomy.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis explains boundaries by efficiency; resource dependence, by power and constraint.
The business-groups literature1978 to the presentWhat it claimsGroups of legally independent firms bound by ownership and social ties are a durable form of their own, neither one firm nor a market. Where institutions function poorly, groups can benefit member firms and can destroy value; they are sometimes paragons, sometimes parasites.What it has shownKhanna and Palepu (2000) found that affiliates of the most diversified Indian groups outperformed unaffiliated firms. A meta-analysis of 141 studies (Carney and colleagues 2011) found that affiliation lowers performance in general, less so where institutions are underdeveloped.Who disputes itOrganizational economics: agency writers read pyramids and cross-holdings as devices that separate control from ownership; Almeida and Wolfenzon offer a financing rationale for pyramids instead.
Scandinavian institutionalism1980s to the presentWhat it claimsIdeas of organizing do not diffuse unchanged; they travel and are translated as they are adopted, so a form taken up in one place is not the same form elsewhere. Organizations can also be built of organizations (meta-organizations), which behave differently.What it has shownA discussion paper by Czarniawska and Joerges (1995) contrasts the diffusion of ideas with their translation, drawing on examples such as Swedish municipal reform; the work on meta-organizations (Ahrne and Brunsson 2008) is conceptual.Who disputes itInstitutional theory can read the same processes, seen from a translocal view, as institutional isomorphism, though translation holds that each adopter modifies an idea, so an institution re-created elsewhere is new.
Societal effect and comparative business systems1980s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms matched on size, technology, and industry differ systematically by country, because how a society educates, trains, recruits, and promotes its workforce, and its industrial relations, shape how work is divided and supervised, so structure is partly a national product.What it has shownMaurice, Sorge, and Warner (1980) compared closely matched manufacturing units in France, West Germany, and Great Britain and found more pervasive differences in their organization than usually recognized. Whitley (1999) set out a comparative account of business systems.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory stresses culture-free elements of structure; matched comparisons find nationally different shapes of organization.
The network perspective on organizations1985 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations and their members are nodes joined by ties, and the pattern of ties shapes what they can do. Economic action is embedded in networks of personal relations (Granovetter 1985), and network forms are a distinct form, not a hybrid of market and hierarchy (Powell 1990).What it has shownPodolny and Page (1998) review the research and find that network forms foster learning, confer status and legitimacy, bring economic benefits, help manage resource dependencies, and give employees considerable autonomy, and they ask for attention to networks' dysfunctions.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics: Williamson treats the hybrid as a third generic form between market and hierarchy; for Powell, network forms are a distinct form, not a mix of the two.
Computational organization design and search1990s to the presentWhat it claimsDesign choices interact, so design space is a rugged landscape with many local peaks, and structure affects how well an organization searches it. Decentralizing interdependent decisions can trap units on poor peaks; temporary decentralization, then reintegration, can help.What it has shownMostly simulation, with one field test: Csaszar (2012), with more than 150,000 stock-picking decisions by 609 mutual funds, found that decision-making structure affects the number of initiatives pursued and the omission and commission errors made.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it disputes structural contingency theory, whose bivariate fit, its simulations show, cannot capture how the best design depends on interactions among choices.
The new-forms debate1990s to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations must solve four universal problems (dividing tasks, allocating them, providing rewards, and providing information), and a form is new when it solves them in new ways. Self-managing organizations radically decentralize authority; skeptics hold hierarchy reappears.What it has shownFoss (2003) traced the rise and partial reversal of Oticon's spaghetti organization to the problem of selective intervention. A meta-analysis of 54 studies of 13,914 teams (Greer and colleagues 2018) found that hierarchy within teams on net slightly lowers team performance.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: removing formal structure leaves informal elites whose power is unaccountable (Freeman), and democratic and network organizations are much less hierarchy-free than their labels suggest.
The algorithmic-management literature2015 to the presentWhat it claimsSoftware does much of the directing, evaluating, and disciplining that managers and rules once did. Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin (2020) call algorithmic control a new contested terrain; Puranam (2021) treats dividing decisions between people and machines as a design problem.What it has shownMostly qualitative field studies of gig work. Wood and colleagues (2019), with 107 interviews in six countries and 679 survey respondents, found that algorithmic management tends to give remote gig workers flexibility and autonomy, but also low pay, isolation, and overwork.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads control at work as contested terrain; Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin take up that view but argue that algorithmic control is distinct from earlier forms.

The forms by first year

Functional structure: 1911 to 1937
Line and staff: 1916 to 1943
Multidivisional (M-form) by product: 1920s practice; named and analyzed 1962 to 1975
Machine bureaucracy: 1922 (Weber); 1979 (Mintzberg)
Divisional by customer or market segment: 1937; 2005
Matrix organization: 1950s to 1960s practice; analyzed 1971 to 1977
Co-determined organization: 1951 to 1976 (the laws); 1984 to 2022 (the main studies)
Socio-technical autonomous work groups: 1951 to 1965
Stratified hierarchy (requisite organization): 1951 to 1989
Cooperative organization: 1958 to 1999
Linking-pin organization (System 4): 1961 to 1967
Divisional by region: 1962 to 1972
Adhocracy (innovative organization): 1968 to 1979
J-form (the Japanese firm): 1968 to 1990
Professional bureaucracy: 1968 to 1979
Holding company (H-form): 1972 to 1975; 1987
Ambidextrous organization: 1976 to 2004
Simple structure: 1979
Hybrid structure: 1980 to the present
Missionary (ideological) organization: 1980 to 1989
Network, modular, and virtual organization: 1986 to 1990
Transnational and multidimensional organization: 1987 to 1989
Business group (keiretsu, chaebol, family house): 1988 to 2007
Shamrock organization: 1988 to 1989
Federal organization: 1989 to 1992
Self-managing organization (less-hierarchical forms): 1989 to 2017
Boundaryless organization: 1990 to 1995
Front-back organization: 1990s to 2007
Professional partnership (P2 form): 1990
The corporate center and shared services: 1991 to 2000
Internal market organization: 1993 to 1994
Process (horizontal) organization: 1993 to 1999
Cellular organization: 1994 to 1997
Hypertext organization: 1994 to 1995
Team-based organization: 1995
Project-based organization: 2000 to 2006
Agile at scale: 2001 to 2016
Distributed (all-remote) organization: 2002 to 2021
Open-source and community-based organization: 2002 to 2007
Algorithmically managed organization: 2015 to 2020
Team of teams: 2015

Twenty-three of the 29 schools run to the present, and 16 of those began in the 1970s or later. The forms arrive in waves: 14 of the 41 first appear between 1985 and 1994.

Source: Fayol 1949; Weber 1978; Mayo 1933; Trist and Bamforth 1951, an interview-based field study in one industry; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms; Mintzberg 1979; Child 1972a; Coase 1937; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Hannan and Freeman 1977; Galbraith 1973; Jensen and Meckling 1976; Crozier 1963; Emery and Thorsrud 1969; Yoshino 1968; Streeck 1984a; Kellogg and colleagues 2020, a review of earlier research through one theoretical lens, with no new data; Puranam and colleagues 2014, a conceptual argument; Chandler 1962, several independent case histories by a historian; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978; Simon 1946; Maurice and colleagues 1980, a comparison of matched factories in three countries; Levinthal 1997; Simon 1962; Braverman 1974; Hamilton and Biggart 1988, a comparison of three economies by scholars; Ward 1958; Czarniawska and Joerges 1995; Granovetter 1985.

Henri Fayol carried it into the theory of administration. Administration industrielle et générale (1916; Storrs's English translation, 1949) has a section on the manager's staff, the état-major, a name he kept from the army. He calls it a sort of extension of the chief's personality; it takes orders only from the general manager and has no executive part in the departments below. It answered how to give a single chain of command specialist expertise without splitting unity of command, one superior for each employee.

Lyndall Urwick set out the relations in The Elements of Administration (1943). He separated staff relations, in which subordinates act for a superior and, as in Fayol, extend the leader's personality, from functional relations, in which a specialist exercises authority on one subject by reason of special skill alongside the line.

Where it fits

No fit cell rests on a test of line and staff; for Woodward (1965), see the research. Each cell is theory from the form's family or our judgment from a named premise, many from Burton and Obel (2004), the most developed scholarly fit model. None is contested.

The line-and-staff form against the twelve contingency factors

Each factor at its three levels, Fits, Partial, or Strain; select a row for its reason, sources, and grade.

Select a factor to read its reason, sources, basis, and grade.Size. Staff specialists earn their cost once the line is big enough to need advice it cannot produce itself; in a small organization they are overhead. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Blau 1970; Burton and Obel 2004; Greiner 1972.Age. Headquarters staff and formal systems multiply as an organization grows older and larger, until they bring a crisis of red tape; Greiner's commentary has the control-oriented staff later replaced by fewer consulting experts. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Greiner 1972.Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism). A single chain of command handles exceptions one at a time; as change speeds up, decisions queue at the top, and advisory staff add analysis but not speed; the argument is made for hierarchies in general. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Galbraith 1973; Burns and Stalker 1961; Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Pennings 1975.Environmental complexity. Staff specialists can read more factors for the line, but decisions still climb one chain of command, which limits how much complexity it can absorb. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980; Pennings 1975.Munificence and hostility. The line keeps central control, which extreme hostility asks for, but staff units add overhead and slow the fast reaction hostility demands. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004.Diversity of products and markets. One line with advisory staff runs one business well; when firms added product lines, the single chain of command came under the strain Chandler found in centralized structures. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Chandler 1962; Burton and Obel 2004.Strategy type. A single line of command with staff who design standards resembles the centralized, formalized design Burton and Obel and Miles and Snow prescribe for a defender; no work tests it against strategy type. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Miles and Snow 1978.Technology and routineness. Staff who write standards suit routine work and staff experts help where exceptions have known methods, but when no procedure exists each exception must still climb the one line to be decided. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Perrow 1967; Burton and Obel 2004; Hickson and colleagues 1969; Child and Mansfield 1972; Mohr 1971.Interdependence. Standards and staff-made plans coordinate pooled and sequential work, but reciprocal adjustment between line units has only the chain of command to run through. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Thompson 1967; Galbraith 1973.Knowledge intensity and professionalization. Specialist staff advising a line of less specialized workers is this form's purpose; where the line itself is professional, the line and staff distinction blurs and staff professionals struggle to enact authority over those they advise. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Huising 2015.Global integration pressure. No work read ties the line and staff form to integration pressure across countries, so this factor gives no reason for or against. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Urwick 1943.Local responsiveness pressure. No work read ties the line and staff form to local responsiveness across countries, so this factor gives no reason for or against. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Urwick 1943.

The 36 settings read Fits at 13, Partial at 18, and Strain at 5. No factor cell is contested, and nine of the twelve rest on judgment.

Source: Blau 1970; Burton and Obel 2004; Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; Galbraith 1973; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Pennings 1975, a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model; Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Chandler 1962, several independent case histories by a historian; Miles and Snow 1978; Perrow 1967; Hickson and colleagues 1969, a multi-organization comparative survey; Child and Mansfield 1972, a multi-firm comparative study; Mohr 1971, a quantitative field study of technology and structure; Thompson 1967; Huising 2015, a comparative ethnography of two groups; Urwick 1943.

Your own situation against the line-and-staff form

Set any factor to outline its cell in the strip above; the lines under the switches give the counts, the form's place among the 41, and the misfit rules that fire.

Size

Age

Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism)

Environmental complexity

Munificence and hostility

Diversity of products and markets

Strategy type

Technology and routineness

Interdependence

Knowledge intensity and professionalization

Global integration pressure

Local responsiveness pressure

Set: 0 of 12 factors. Fits on 0, Partial on 0, Strain on 0, Contested on 0.

Its place in the explorer's rankingEvery factor is on Any: all 41 forms tie, and the explorer lists them alphabetically.1st of 411st of 41, tied with one other1st of 41, tied with 0 othersSunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41Sunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41, tied with one otherSunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41, tied with 0 others

Flagged (its sources disagree): A prospector that decides everything at the top. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004.
Flagged (its sources disagree): A large organization that decides everything at the top. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
Flagged (its sources disagree): Nonroutine work decided at the top. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; Child and Mansfield 1972; Mohr 1971.
Sinks the form: Central decisions in a turbulent environment. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
Flagged (it meets the form only through part of its profile): Reciprocal work coordinated by standards. Source: Thompson 1967; Van de Ven and colleagues 1976.

Ranking rule: by count of Fits on the factors the reader has set, then fewest Strains, then alphabetical; a fired misfit rule that no source disputes sinks the form to the bottom when every level of the form's profile meets it, a disputed one, or one that meets the form only through one end of a spanned level, one view of a contested profile cell, or one part of a two-part form, is flagged on the row (with both views where it is disputed), and a misfit between two of the reader's own settings is shown once above the list; a contested cell counts only where its views agree at the reader's level, and otherwise shows as Contested; factors on "Any" count for nothing; with every factor on "Any" the list is alphabetical and says so.

Open these settings in the explorer

The misfit rules that can fire for this form

A prospector that decides everything at the top fires when Strategy type at Prospector (exploration): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004.
A large organization that decides everything at the top fires when Size at Large: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
Nonroutine work decided at the top fires when Technology and routineness at Nonroutine: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; Child and Mansfield 1972; Mohr 1971.
Central decisions in a turbulent environment fires when Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism) at Unpredictable and Environmental complexity at Complex: sinks the form. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
Reciprocal work coordinated by standards fires when Interdependence at Reciprocal: flagged (it meets the form only through part of its profile). Source: Thompson 1967; Van de Ven and colleagues 1976.

Of the 39 contingency misfit rules, five can fire for this form: one would sink it and four would only flag it.

Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2020a.

Size. Fits medium and large; partial small (theory). Staff earn their cost once the line needs advice it cannot produce (Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test, whose coordination phase hires numerous headquarters staff; Burton and Obel 2004). Blau (1970) offsets: size also shrinks the administrative component, which is supervisory, not advisory, staff. Burton and Obel's disputed rule against a large organization deciding at the top fires here (see how it fails).
Age. Fits established; partial young and old (theory, Greiner 1972: staff and systems multiply until a crisis of red tape, and fewer consulting experts later replace control-oriented staff). The young level is judgment; the old level is our reading, as Greiner never calls those experts a limit on advisory staff.
Environmental uncertainty. Fits stable, partial shifting, strain unpredictable (theory, argued for hierarchies in general: Galbraith 1973; Burton and Obel 2004; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms, not of this form). Pennings (1975), a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model, found environment and structure fit did not explain effectiveness, a limit on the premise, though Donaldson (2001) traces this failure, and Mohr's, to methodological limitations.
Environmental complexity. Fits simple; partial moderate and complex. Our reading, on Burton and Obel's (2004) premise that high complexity lowers the fitting level of centralization. Pennings (1975), above, limits it too: complexity was among his measures.
Munificence and hostility. Partial throughout, our reading of Burton and Obel (2004). At high hostility they lower centralization so the organization can react fast, which cuts against this form; at extreme hostility they raise it for a unified effort, which the line gives, though at both levels they lower organizational complexity, and at the extreme they want a simple configuration. This factor's hostile level spans both, and staff overhead slows a fast reaction.
Diversity. Fits a single business; strain for related and unrelated diversification. Our reading, on the premise of Chandler (1962), several independent case histories by a historian, that centralized structures strained as firms diversified.
Strategy. Fits defender, partial analyzer, strain prospector. Our reading: the form resembles the centralized, formalized design Burton and Obel (2004) and Miles and Snow (1978) prescribe for a defender.
Technology. Fits routine and mixed; partial nonroutine. Our reading, on Mintzberg (1980), a synthesis without a new test, and Burton and Obel (2004): staff standards suit routine work. Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey (1969, a multi-organization comparative survey), Child and Mansfield (1972, a multi-firm comparative study), and Mohr (1971, a quantitative field study of technology and structure) found technology's ties to structure weak or narrow, a limit on every technology cell; Donaldson reports later studies of the job unpredictability Mohr studied finding positive evidence.
Interdependence. Fits pooled and sequential; strain reciprocal. Our reading, on Thompson's (1967) premise that reciprocal work needs liaison positions and teams, and Galbraith's (1973) hierarchy overload.
Knowledge intensity. Fits low and moderate; partial high. Our reading: Mintzberg's (1980) synthesis describes the line and staff distinction as sharp in the machine bureaucracy and blurred in the adhocracy, and Huising (2015), a comparative ethnography of two groups, found professionals with formal authority in a university struggling to enact it.
Global integration and local responsiveness pressure. Partial throughout, our judgment, as neutral values: no work read ties the form to either.

What it does well

It adds expertise without adding bosses: Fayol's staff extends a senior manager's capacity while each person below still takes orders from one superior.

Staff jobs can carry coordination across units: the one study of it, in one multidivisional firm, found corporate staff holding more integrative networks than line employees, though much of the difference came from who was sorted into staff jobs (Kleinbaum and Stuart 2014).

DiBenigno (2019), an ethnographic study inside one organization, found that experts without formal authority over commanders built influential relationships through what she calls rapid relationality. Huising (2015) found that, of two groups holding formal authority, one succeeded by producing relational authority.

What it costs

The staff is overhead that, on the size cell's untested theory, pays only once the line needs advice it cannot produce.

It may be slow: by our reading, advice adds analysis, not deciders.

Influence has to be built: the two ethnographies found it takes relationships, which some experts, depending on characteristics such as gender, took longer to build (DiBenigno 2019).

How it fails

How the line-and-staff form fails, and the coordination failures behind it

The entry's failure modes at the left, each tied to the Coordination Failures patterns it names at the right; a pattern links its entry there.

Regulator overload Siloed knowledge Jurisdictional gap or overlap Subsystem self-perpetuation

How many ties the failure has. Highest: Decisions queue on the one lineAdvice that the line does not takeSpecialist authority that runs into the line'sHeadquarters staff and red tapeRegulator overloadSiloed knowledgeJurisdictional gap or overlapSubsystem self-perpetuation

Select a failure to read its place in the network.Decisions queue on the one line. Degree 1Advice that the line does not take. Degree 1Specialist authority that runs into the line's. Degree 1Headquarters staff and red tape. Degree 1Regulator overload. Degree 1Siloed knowledge. Degree 1Jurisdictional gap or overlap. Degree 1Subsystem self-perpetuation. Degree 1

Failure	Degree
Decisions queue on the one line	1
Advice that the line does not take	1
Specialist authority that runs into the line's	1
Headquarters staff and red tape	1
Regulator overload	1
Siloed knowledge	1
Jurisdictional gap or overlap	1
Subsystem self-perpetuation	1

Four failure modes name four patterns, and no pattern is named by more than one.

Source: Galbraith 1973; Burton and Obel 2004; DiBenigno 2019, an ethnographic study inside one organization; Huising 2015, a comparative ethnography of two groups; Urwick 1943; Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; George and colleagues 2021, a meta-analysis and meta-regression of public administration studies.

Decisions queue on the one line. Exceptions climb one chain of command and, when change speeds up, arrive faster than the top can decide: regulator overload. It is theory for hierarchies in general: more uncertainty means more information to process (Galbraith 1973), and capacity must match it (Burton and Obel 2004). That staff add analysis, not deciders, is our reading; vertical information systems are among Galbraith's remedies.

Advice that the line does not take. Staff cannot make the line act, so, by our reading, the staff's findings and the line's decision never combine: siloed knowledge, unless relationships carry it, as both ethnographies found.

Specialist authority that runs into the line's. Where staff hold authority over one subject inside line units (Urwick's 1943 functional relations), two kinds of authority meet, and by our reading the boundary can blur or lapse: jurisdictional gap or overlap.

Headquarters staff and red tape. Greiner's (1972) coordination phase, in a conceptual model with no systematic test, hires headquarters staff and ends in a crisis of red tape; we link it to subsystem self-perpetuation. Following his delegation phase, it describes a headquarters above delegated units more than advisers beside one line. George and colleagues (2021), a meta-analysis and meta-regression of public administration studies, found red tape harmful to performance and employee outcomes, more so when self-imposed.

Greiner's five phases of growth, each ended by a crisis

Each box names a phase and, after its colon, the crisis that ends it; select a phase to read where a form in this series meets it. Greiner's is a conceptual model with no systematic test, and DeSantola, Gulati, and Zhelyazkov (2023) found young ventures following divergent paths, not one sequence.

Select a phase to read where a form in this series meets it.Phase 1. Creativity, the first phase, is led by founders and ends in a crisis of leadership. It is the phase of the simple structure, run by one leader, often the founder or owner.Phase 2. Under Direction, functions come in as the firm grows past its founders, which brings it from a simple structure into the functional form after the founders' crisis of leadership. Jobs grow specialized, budgets and work standards are adopted, and communication grows formal and impersonal, so on this series' reading organizations may grow toward the machine bureaucracy here. The phase ends in a crisis of autonomy.Phase 3. Delegation ends in a crisis of control. The line and staff page reads the coordination phase that follows as a headquarters above the units this phase delegated to, more than advisers beside one line.Phase 4. In Coordination, decentralized units are merged into product groups, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply until the phase ends in a crisis of red tape. The line and staff form's ratings for size and age draw on this phase's headquarters staff.Phase 5. Collaboration: a matrix-type structure comes in, though Greiner's later commentary confines it largely to senior management, and the commentary has fewer consulting experts replacing control-oriented staff. Greiner marked the crisis ending this phase with a question mark in 1972, guessing at employees' psychological saturation; his later commentary calls that guess wrong and names a crisis of finding no internal solution for further growth.

Phase 1. Creativity, the first phase, is led by founders and ends in a crisis of leadership. It is the phase of the simple structure, run by one leader, often the founder or owner.
Phase 2. Under Direction, functions come in as the firm grows past its founders, which brings it from a simple structure into the functional form after the founders' crisis of leadership. Jobs grow specialized, budgets and work standards are adopted, and communication grows formal and impersonal, so on this series' reading organizations may grow toward the machine bureaucracy here. The phase ends in a crisis of autonomy.
Phase 3. Delegation ends in a crisis of control. The line and staff page reads the coordination phase that follows as a headquarters above the units this phase delegated to, more than advisers beside one line.
Phase 4. In Coordination, decentralized units are merged into product groups, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply until the phase ends in a crisis of red tape. The line and staff form's ratings for size and age draw on this phase's headquarters staff.
Phase 5. Collaboration: a matrix-type structure comes in, though Greiner's later commentary confines it largely to senior management, and the commentary has fewer consulting experts replacing control-oriented staff. Greiner marked the crisis ending this phase with a question mark in 1972, guessing at employees' psychological saturation; his later commentary calls that guess wrong and names a crisis of finding no internal solution for further growth.

Greiner's model opens with the founder-led phase of the simple structure; functions, specialized jobs, and work standards come in second, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply over product groups in the fourth, the phase the line and staff page draws on. He calls the phases approximations drawn from case histories, and his later commentary replaces his 1972 guess at the crisis that ends the fifth.

Source: Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; DeSantola and colleagues 2023, a longitudinal quantitative study of thousands of young ventures.

One of the five misfit rules that fire sinks the form: central decisions where many dissimilar factors change unpredictably (Burton and Obel 2004), undisputed and met by the form's single centralization level. The rest flag the row. Reciprocal work run mainly by standard procedures, our judgment from Thompson (1967), is undisputed but meets only the standardization end of the form's spanned coordinating mechanism.

On the form's centralization, three disputed rules fire. Burton and Obel's rule against a large organization deciding at the top meets Mintzberg's (1980) centralized machine bureaucracy of older, larger organizations, a synthesis without a new test. Doty, Glick, and Huber (1993), a quantitative test across a sample of organizations, found no effectiveness gain from resembling his types; Ketchen and colleagues (1997), a meta-analysis of 40 tests pooling configuration types, many of them strategy types, found configurations partly explain performance; and Krabberød (2015), a review, argues the Doty test has not been shown to be exhaustive. Their rule against a centralized prospector meets their own recommendation of a simple configuration for one; and their rule against nonroutine work decided at the top meets Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey (1969), Child and Mansfield (1972), and Mohr (1971). Burton and Obel's rules are propositions, untested one by one; the one test, of an earlier version as a set (Burton, Lauridsen, and Obel 2002, a quantitative study of 224 Danish small and medium-sized firms, none large), found lower return on assets with misfits but, contrary to its hypotheses, no further loss from added misfits, and the large-size rule lies outside it. Each rule pairs one factor with one structure, the interaction form of fit, unsupported in Drazin and Van de Ven (1985), a quantitative study of 629 work units in two states' employment security agencies; the nearest test of the Thompson rule's premise (Van de Ven, Delbecq, and Koenig 1976, a quantitative study of 197 work units in one agency) found coordination modes added as a mix.

What the research found

The research studies the staff role more than the form: only Woodward (1965) analyzed line-staff organization as such, by production system, and no record here gives her result for it.

The Aston survey of 52 work organizations in England (Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, and Turner 1968), a multi-organization comparative survey, found four underlying dimensions of structure, among them line control of workflow and size of supportive component, and concluded that the concept of the bureaucratic type is no longer useful (also Pugh, Hickson, and Hinings 1969, a multi-organization comparative survey). Wagner (2021), a meta-analysis of 346 correlations from 155 published articles, found many links among five structural dimensions weakened since an earlier meta-analysis, and concludes that dimensional structural research lacks a viable theoretical foundation.

Dalton (1950), a study of three plants by one scholar, traced staff and line friction, one part of a general conflict among managers, to three conditions: staff officers' conspicuous ambition and individualistic behavior, the staff's efforts to justify its existence and win acceptance, and the higher staff offices' dependence on line approval. Belasco and Alutto (1969), an empirical study whose design we could not read, reported that staff and line conflicts may be less severe and different in nature than had been previously assumed, though the part read names no earlier study.

Recent work studies advisory roles inside line hierarchies, though none uses the compound label: Kleinbaum and Stuart (2014); Huising (2015); and Sandhu and Kulik (2019), a multiple-case study of 21 organizations, which found functions and roles co-evolving as sustainability programs matured. DiBenigno (2019), the most recent, is an ethnographic study of 56 pairs of U.S. Army mental health professionals and soldiers' commanders.

Classical principles came from experience; Simon (1946) answered that they come in contradictory pairs; the human relations school found that informal groups and supervision shaped output whatever the formal design (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939, ungraded here, findings that reanalyses dispute); and contingency research found successful structures varying with technology and environment (Woodward 1965, a survey of a hundred manufacturing firms with case studies; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms). Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey (1969), set against Woodward's findings, found operations technology unrelated to the wider administrative and hierarchical structure of larger organizations.

The bureaucracy school's critics press on the rules staff design. The human relations school stresses the costs of impersonal rules to motivation and cooperation (McGregor 1960; Likert 1961). Adler and Borys (1996), a conceptual argument, hold that rules can enable as well as coerce; Lee and Edmondson (2017), a review of the literature, describe the hierarchy's limits in dynamic conditions; Crozier (1964), two case studies by a scholar, reads rules as protection in a system of power relations; and Acker (1990) argues that hierarchies are not gender neutral.

The evidence ledger holds 10 studies filed under this form.

In practice: one published case

Two professional groups overseeing compliance in university laboratories, as Huising (2015) describes them, are one case study. The source is a comparative ethnography of two groups in one setting; the abstract does not name the university, and the account here rests on that abstract. It was chosen from Crossref and web searches for line and staff case studies, which also located Dalton's plant studies.

Both groups held formal authority to oversee compliance by the same laboratory researchers, and both also advised those researchers. The study does not use the line and staff label.

Of the two, one kept the menial scut work with contaminated materials. Doing that work gave the group regular entry to the labs and relationships with the researchers it oversaw. The other group outsourced its scut work and met researchers mostly at annual inspections and training. That group drew complaints to management and eventually lost its jurisdiction.

Huising reads the findings as showing the importance of producing relational authority, the capacity to elicit voluntary compliance, for advisory professionals in bureaucracies, and as challenging the relevance of expertise and professional identity in generating it. Holding on to scut work, not hiving it off, is how one group enacted authority over its clients.

Source: Huising 2015. To hive or to hold? Producing professional authority through scut work, Administrative Science Quarterly 60(2), 263 to 299; a comparative ethnography of two groups.

Variants and near relatives

Functional staff authority gives a staff specialist authority over one subject inside the line units, so the line stays whole: Urwick's (1943) functional relations. Functional foremanship, a variant of the functional structure, instead splits the single foreman's job among several specialist bosses, so a worker answers to more than one.

The general staff is the staff idea's military source and its business counterpart. Dale and Urwick (1960) set the general staff officer, who serves the commander as a whole, apart from the specialist, who serves in one function; Kieser and Kubicek (1992) name the director's assistant as the typical generalized staff position. The base form's staff units advise in one specialty; the general staff serves the whole of one manager's job. The sources differ on Fayol's état-major: it serves the general manager alone, as a general staff does, but Fayol calls its members specialists. Urwick's staff relations, too, follow the general staff model.

Its nearest neighbor, the functional structure, gives every function head line authority over that function's people. Line and staff splits authority itself into the line's right to command and the staff's right to advise.

The other relatives are the machine bureaucracy, where analysts impose work standards on the operating core rather than advising a line that decides; and the corporate center and shared services, which designs the headquarters and what it pools.

The line-and-staff form beside its nearest neighbor, the functional structure

Select a number to fill what it marks in both drawings; the list under them gives the dimensions on which the two profiles differ.

It splits authority into two kinds inside one chain of command, the line's right to command and the staff's right only to advise, where a pure functional structure gives every function head line authority over its own people.

Line and staff

Reports toAdvises, or reports indirectlyDDirect supervisionWStandardization of work processes

Functional structure

Reports toDDirect supervisionWStandardization of work processes

Staff units sit beside the line and advise the managers they serve, who decide; in a pure functional structure every function head holds line authority over its own people.
Line and staff groups its line units by function or by product, since it is defined by its kind of authority and leaves the basis open; the functional structure groups by function alone.
Staff specialists reach across line units on their subject, which we rate as direct contact and liaison; the functional structure's functions meet only through the chief executive, with no designed lateral links.

Differs on 6 of 11 dimensions

Basis of grouping Function or process and product or purpose; Functional structure: Function or process
Specialization Medium; Functional structure: Medium to high
Layers and span of control Moderate to tall; Functional structure: Moderate
Decision rights and the locus of authority Vertical and horizontal centralization to limited horizontal decentralization; Functional structure: Vertical and horizontal centralization
Lateral mechanisms Direct contact and liaison roles; Functional structure: Hierarchy, rules, and goals only
Differentiation against integration Moderate differentiation, some integrating roles; Functional structure: Low differentiation, light integration to moderate differentiation, some integrating roles

Line and staff keeps one chain of command under one head, as the functional structure does. It splits authority into the line's right to command and the staff's right only to advise, whereas every function head in the functional structure holds line authority over its own people.

Source: Fayol 1949; Urwick 1943; Williamson 1975.

Moving into or out of it

Burton and Obel (2004) write that growth may call for more decentralization, new administrative positions, and more specialization and formalization, at some cost in flexibility; by our reading, the first of these cuts against this form's centralization. DeSantola, Gulati, and Zhelyazkov (2023), a longitudinal quantitative study of 3,748 young United States ventures, found growth taking divergent paths, with ventures in unconventional market spaces less apt to build internal process functions.

No study here measures what moving into or out of this form costs. Hannan and Freeman (1984) argue that attempts at reorganization increase death rates, though tests show effects vary by type of change; for running a reorganization, see Change & Transformation.

The thinking behind it

Henri Fayol, Administration industrielle et générale (1916; Storrs's translation 1949): the general staff, which extends a manager's capacity without dividing command, and unity of command, which explains why staff advise but do not order. Principles from experience, not tested propositions.

Lyndall Urwick, The Elements of Administration (1943): staff relations against functional relations, which explains the functional staff variant.

Ernest Dale, with Urwick, Staff in Organization (1960): the general staff officer, who serves the commander across all functions.

Melville Dalton (1950): line and staff conflict, which explains the friction between advice and command.

Henry Mintzberg (1980): the machine bureaucracy, coordinated by work standards set in a technostructure, which marks where staff stop advising the line and start standardizing its work. A synthesis, not a test; the Aston group concluded that a single bureaucratic type is no longer useful, and the main direct test of his types found no effectiveness gain (Doty, Glick, and Huber 1993).

Larry Greiner (1972): phases of growth separated by crises, among them a coordination phase whose headquarters staff end in red tape. A conceptual model; later research finds divergent paths, not one sequence.

Ruthanne Huising (2015) and Julia DiBenigno (2019): relational authority and rapid relationality, which explain how advisers win influence without command.

Richard Burton and Børge Obel (2004): the multi-contingency model, the source of most fit cells and misfit rules here.

Also called

Line-staff organization, and staff and line. Fayol (1916) writes of the état-major; Urwick (1943) of staff relations and functional relations; and Dale and Urwick (1960) of the general staff and the assistant-to.

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