Flatter Structures Research Articles

The effect of flatter hierarchy on applicant pool gender diversity: Evidence from experiments

AbstractResearch SummaryThis article investigates how job seekers' perceptions of an employer's formal hierarchy affect the size and gender composition of its applicant pool. Building on the literature on gendered organizations and organizational design, we develop opposing perspectives on these relationships. To arbitrate between these perspectives, we first conduct a field experiment in partnership with a hiring firm. We find that featuring a flatter hierarchy in recruiting materials does not significantly affect the size of the applicant pool, but significantly decreases women's representation within it. Our follow‐up survey experiment identifies several potential mechanisms (e.g., perceptions of career progression, informality, workload, and fit). Our findings imply that firms' growing tendency to adopt flatter hierarchies could inadvertently undermine efforts to attract a greater proportion of women applicants.Managerial SummaryUsing a pair of labor market experiments, this study finds that characterizing a hiring firm's hierarchy as “flatter” with fewer management levels reduces women's representation in the applicant pool. We show that this decrease in the share of women applicants is likely driven by the fact that women, compared to men, perceive flatter hierarchies as more likely to present difficulties in fitting in, burden them with more work, and provide fewer opportunities for career progression. These findings suggest that, to mitigate workplace gender segregation, organizations with flatter structures may benefit from de‐emphasizing their organizational hierarchies in recruitment efforts. Moreover, companies should consider how their organizational attributes contribute to fostering a more inclusive work environment.

Distributed Ledger Technology Experiments in Payments and Settlements

Major transformations in payment and settlements have occurred in generations. The first generation was paper-based. Delivery times for payment instruments took several days domestically and weeks internationally. The second generation involved computerization with batch processing. Links between payment systems were made through manual or file-based interfaces. The change-over period between technologies was long and still some paper-based instruments like checks and cash remain in use. The third generation, which has been emerging, involves electronic and mobile payment schemes that enable integrated, immediate, and end-to-end payment and settlement transfers. For example, real-time gross settlement systems have been available in almost all countries. DLT has been viewed as a potential platform for the next generation of payment systems, enhancing the integration and the reconciliation of settlement accounts and their ledgers. So far, experiments with DLT experimentations point to the potential for financial infrastructures to move towards real-time settlement, flatter structures, continuous operations, and global reach. Testing in large-value payments and securities settlement systems have partly demonstrated the technical feasibility of DLT for this new environment. The projects examined analyzed issues associated with operational capacity, resiliency, liquidity savings, settlement finality, and privacy. DLT-based solutions can also facilitate delivery versus payment of securities, payment versus payment of foreign exchange transactions, and efficient cross-border payments.

Modeling the impact of organization structure and whistle-blowers on intra-organizational corruption contagion

We complement the rich conceptual work on organizational corruption by quantitatively modeling the spread of corruption within organizations. We systematically vary four organizational culture-related parameters, i.e., organization structure, location of bad apples, employees’ propensity to become corrupted (“corruption probability”), and number of whistle-blowers. Our simulation studies find that in organizations with flatter structures, corruption permeates the organization at a lower threshold value of corruption probability compared to those with taller structures. However, the final proportion of corrupted individuals is higher in the latter as compared to the former. Also, we find that for a 1,000-strong organization, 5% of the workforce is a critical threshold in terms of the number of whistle-blowers needed to constrain the spread of corruption, and if this number is around 25%, the corruption contagion is negligible. Implications of our results are discussed.

The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition: A Career Development Framework for Succession Planning and Management in Academic Libraries

Succession planning and management are critical parts of strategic planning for libraries in the twenty-first century. Making certain that the right people are in place with the prerequisite training and experience to assume leadership positions is a vital part of strategic planning and talent management in libraries that rely on teams of people working in flatter structures and greater accountability. The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition framework suggests that mentoring, coaching, and professional development empower staff for movement up organizational career ladders as part of succession planning and management. To maximize human capital, administrators need to determine skill development levels among staff so that they can identify skill “gaps” internally, create new career ladders, identify emerging stars, and enhance evidence of values for staff contributions.

Reducing duplication and redundancy in declarative model specifications

Event Abstract Back to Event Reducing duplication and redundancy in declarative model specifications Robert Cannon1*, Padraig Gleeson2, Sharon Crook3 and Angus Silver2 1 Textensor Limited, UK 2 University College London, United Kingdom 3 Arizona State University, United States Methods for storing and sharing biological models, whether by scripts, or with declarative languages such as SBML or CellML, tend to focus on directly encoding a model and its equations. However, many models share essentially the same equations, except for differences in parameter values or the number of instances of particular processes. We have therefore developed a mechanism within NeuroML[1] whereby the common structural and mathematical features of a family of models can be expressed separately from the parameter values that make up a particular member of the family. Specifications in this form correspond closely to the conceptual understanding that modelers have of the systems they work on. Supporting this style of description allows models to be expressed more concisely than if flatter structures are used since it avoids repeating common elements. It also enables a wide range of model related processing beyond simply executing them, including systematic comparisons, archiving, model composition, and sensitivity analysis. The resulting system, known as LEMS (Low Entropy Model Specification), has been developed to meet the needs of NeuroML but can also be applied to other declarative model specifications. It makes it possible to retro-fit most of the existing high level concepts ion NeuroML version 1 with domain independent definitions built out of the LEMS elements. This preserves the benefits of the existing semantically rich high-level concepts while adding the ability to extend it with new concepts at the user-level rather than requiring changes to the language. Simulator developers have a choice between directly supporting the library of core types in NeuroML or supporting the underlying LEMS definitions. Libraries are available in both Java and Python to allow simulator developers to work with LEMS models without having to implement the low level support themselves. These include options for flattening models into sets of simultaneous differential equations, and for code generation to create standalone executable units.

Crystallization of CaCO3in Water–Alcohol Mixtures: Spherulitic Growth, Polymorph Stabilization, and Morphology Change

The presence of alcohol in binary alcohol–water mixtures can affect the precipitation pathways of anhydrous crystalline CaCO3 polymorphs and their morphology. We explored the formation pathways and the effects of several parameters on calcite, vaterite, and aragonite: concentration of simple alcohols, time, and shaking speed, and we derived a multiparameter model for predicting what phase is preferred. We found that shaking speed and alcohol concentration are the most important parameters for affecting the stability of vaterite and aragonite and for changing vaterite morphology, from cauliflower-shaped, spherical aggregates, to dendritic, flatter structures. In all our experiments, the precipitated aragonite was twinned, and both the vaterite and aragonite can be interpreted to form through spherulitic growth. Classical growth theory fully describes their formation; there is no need to invoke the popular hypothesis for nonclassical growth by self-assembly of nanocrystals. These studies, and future work with solutions of low water activity, are paving the way to a better understanding of how organisms select their preferred polymorph and engineer CaCO3 morphology during biomineralization.

Plato as personnel manager

PurposeDescribes how Plato's philosophy has influenced, and may continue to affect, modern human‐resource management.Design/methodology/approachOutlines some of Plato's main ideas – including the role of the philosopher king in striving for the ideal – and draws out their relevance for current HR thinking and practice.FindingsContends that the platonic HR manager would oppose the notion of flatter structures. Policy would encourage progression through education, recognizing that not everyone had the qualities or wisdom to become a top executive. Men would rise faster than women, and emphasis would be placed on age, experience and service. Training and development would be more segmented and orientated towards efficiency.Practical implicationsArgues that, on the basis of Plato's philosophy, educated and enlightened leaders would go the extra mile for the good of the enterprise and senior executives would set an example.Social implicationsHighlights an anti‐democratic notion at the heart of Plato's philosophy: that truth and reality reside in a universal series of ideals, or forms, that transcend the material world and are understood only by a few members of a privileged class.Originality/valueApplies 2,500‐year‐old ideas to the modern HR world.

Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability

Competitive pressures are forcing companies to adopt practices and supply chain structures that will produce high quality, reliable, reasonably priced products with continuously shorter lead times. In order to meet these goals, companies are utilizing flatter organizational structures and narrower supply chains. Flatter structures and narrower supply chains typically reap the benefits of reduced coordination costs and improved organizational efficiencies. However, there exists an associated burden of an increased risk of a single point of failure that could leave the supply chain unable to deliver products to the market in a timely manner. This research study develops a model of risk, called the risk assessment index, to assess the vulnerability of different supply chain structures. It is determined that there exists significant trade-offs between the number of suppliers in the supplier base, product diversification, supply chain coordination, and supply chain efficiency that must be examined for a supply chain to remain competitive in a highly risky, vulnerable environment.

Vertically Challenged or Set to Metamorphosize? A Preliminary Assessment of Organizational Communication in Singapore

Singapore is an Asian country with a typically high degree of hierarchy and power distance. It is also a country with a keen awareness of the need to keep ahead in the development of its workforce and has ambitious plans for tailoring its limited labour market to become a knowledge-based one. The paper analyzes whether its existing corporate culture of power distance and mechanistic management style is ready for the development into the flatter structures which globalization requires.

Self-direction or social support? nonprofit empowerment and the tacit employment contract of organizational communication studies

In organizational communication studies, empowerment has come to connote flatter structures, participation programs, and other techniques thought to enhance member competence and control through increased self-direction. We contend that this model-and, arguably, organizational communication studies more broadly-presumes a particular employment contract. We report a study of a different contract: staff-volunteer relations at a nonprofit organization. Our results indicate that, while volunteers prioritized the role of social support in accomplishing empowerment, staff members treated volunteers as pseudo-employees to be empowered through enhanced authority and participation. Ironically, the staff's model impeded volunteer empowerment. We use the case to mark the contingent character of empowerment, and specifically, (a) its contextual and intersubjective nature, (b) its relational and emotional aspects, and (c) the importance of members' temporal investment in the organization. We conclude that attention to diverse membership contracts and contexts can complicate and enrich empowerment theory.

Changing NHS structures: implications for nursing careers.

This article explores what implications the flatter NHS structures (after the restructuring of April 1999) might have for nursing careers. It examines issues of recognition, reward systems and career pathways and the problems these may pose for the retention of qualified staff within nursing. It is seen that flatter structures will offer little in the way of traditional vertical promotion opportunities and readers are invited to explore the possibility of lateral promotion, continuous development, career grids and the rise of the generic nurse. Speculation about the introduction of competency-based pay systems is introduced. The article attempts to progress the debate in the area of the links between structure and supporting human resource infrastructures within the public sector set against background context of severe cash constraints. It seeks to raise the issues and open debate among practitioners.

The Lithoprobe Abitibi-Grenville transect: two billion years of crust formation and recycling in the Precambrian Shield of Canada

We summarize the results of Lithoprobe studies in the Neoarchean southeastern Superior Province and the Mesoproterozoic Grenville Province, in the southeastern Precambrian Shield of Canada, through two composite cross-sections based on seismic reflection data, which define dramatically different styles of crust formation and tectonic accretion in the Neoarchean and Mesoproterozoic. In the Neoarchean, the structures at the surface are steep, with discontinuous and flatter structures at depth, much of the crust appears to be juvenile, and the predominant process of crustal growth is inferred to have been subduction-accretion of primitive crust in a prograding arc system. In the Mesoproterozoic, surface structures are shallow and the seismic character of the crust is continuous over the entire cross-section. Archean parautochthonous rocks and reworked Archean crust comprise a very significant proportion of the preserved crust in the Mesoproterozoic and provided the backstop to the Grenvillian orogeny, resulting in the exhumation of crustal rocks formed at high pressures. Preservation of Neoarchean crust, including a thickened lithosphere in the Superior Province, in contrast to its general destruction in younger orogens, may well relate to a unique thermal regime at this time on Earth.

Spatial group choice: a SDSS tool for collaborative spatial decisionmaking

Current trends in modern organizations towards flatter structures and the involvement of many stakeholder groups in solving spatial decision problems have created a need for information technology capable of supporting collaborative spatial decision-making. Such information technology has developed in recent years for the computerized support of group decision-making aimed at solving business problems, e.g., market strategies, corporate planning, product development, and others. Similar information technology to support group decisionmaking aimed at solving spatial decision problems, e.g., site selection, choice of environmental and economic strategies, and urban/regional development, are now beginning to appear in the research literature. GIS, often designed for spatial decision support, have lacked a capability to collate interests and interactions to support collaborative spatial decision-making. As a step towards addressing this void, we present a spatial decision support system for groups (SDSS-G) called Spatial Group Choice. A spatial problem focusing on prioritizing habitat site development is used as a backdrop to present the design and development issues. We discuss the technical and social-oriented design guidelines adopted for the development of Spatial Group Choice using a framework that characterizes meetings in terms of spatial-temporal dimensionality. We then describe the design and implementation of Spatial Group Choice, including a 'tour' of the software, using a habitat restoration decision problem. We conclude with issues unresolved and prospects for future development.

Learning to align organizational design and data

The relationship between organizational learning and organizational design is explored. In particular, we examine the information processing aspects of organizational learning as they apply to a two-valued decision making task and the relation of such aspects to organizational structure. Our primary contribution is to extend Carley's (1992) model of this process. The original model assumes that all data input into the decision making processes are of equal importance or “weight” in determining the correct overall organizational decision. The extension described here allows for the more natural situation of non-uniform weights of evidence. Further extensions to the model are also discussed. Such organizational learning performance measures provide an interesting framework for analyzing the recent trend towards flatter organizational structures. This research suggests that flatter structures are not always better, but rather that data environment, ultimate performance goals, and relative need for speed in learning can be used to form a contingency model for choosing organizational structure.

“Teamwork is the keystone” say cops

Discusses the link between organizational context and the nature of effective teamwork. Using a variety of examples from the police force, highlights the importance of the explicit authority structure in terms of providing clear leadership and accountability. Other types of organizations are unable to provide this sort of absolute parameters, particularly since the trend is towards leaner, flatter structures and empowered workforces. Staff are likely to find themselves in a number of teams, all working to different agendas and with little guidance about priorities. One solution is to focus on translating the business strategy into clearly defined goals so that the context for teamwork is explicit and the priority of the outcome is clear.

Library management styles and structures: a need to rethink?

The situation in libraries has changed dramatically in the last few years. The range of skills required is greater than ever, but many of these are not library skills; they are in computing, systems design, marketing and so on. Staff have to learn to think and live in different ways. Greater flexibility, a different balance between middle- and lower-level staff, and a less rigidly hierarchical structure should result in a much more effective organization. Whereas, in the past, processes have dominated, now there is a need to identify what the market wants, that is, products the library should be offering. It is no longer enough for librarians to know how much they are spending; they need to know how well they are performing. Flatter structures, which can be implemented within a grade hierarchy, would help to achieve the necessary changes. A 'staff requirements audit' should be carried out to determine how many staff, at what level, and with what skills, are needed in the future. Greater delegation can start at any time. Strategic planning can be a good way for staff to learn new skills and attitudes and to handle change.

Reorganized for the 1990's: Organizational Structures Have Changed...What About the People?

Summary Over the last several years corporate managements have focused on revampingorganizational structures to provide environments conducive to greaterproductivity. These new organizations however, will be more productive only ifthe people involved are; hence, the people involved are; hence, the focus nowmust shift to the individual. Organizations must prepare individual employeesto function and succeed within the new structures, and employees must changesome old attitudes and work practices before realizing greaterproductivity. Introduction Major corporations in the oil and gas industry have spent hundreds ofmillions of dollars to create new organizational structures, with thejustification that productivity would increase. Presumably, these neworganizational structures promote faster responses to ever-changing economic, technical, and environmental conditions. In addition, the less hierarchical andless departmentalized organizations require fewer people and provide a haven inwhich cross-functional teams provide a haven in which cross-functional teamscan solve problems with greater flexibility, creativity, and innovation. As aresult, our industry is reorganized for the 1990's, but the organizations canprovide only the framework to encourage provide only the framework to encourageproductivity. Individuals and teams of productivity. Individuals and teams ofindividuals have the most significant impact on productivity. With all theattention focused on putting the framework in place, can we be certain thatindividuals, alter working in the hierarchies of the past, can thrive withinthe new, flatter structures? Is it valid to assume that the individual knowshow to work as a part of this new "team"? Schein suggests that as asociety, people in the U.S. are very familiar and people in the U.S. are veryfamiliar and comfortable working, playing, and living in hierarchical teams. They are so comfortable, in fact, that it may be quite difficult forindividuals thrust into flatter organizations, with their emphasis oninterdependent teamwork, to conceptualize how these systems will work. Scheinuses football to illustrate U.S. society's popular view of teamwork. One doesnot have to be a football fanatic to identify the hierarchy of head coach andall the assistant coaches and coordinators. The "team," individualplayers trying to score, is instructed by at least two layers of management onthe sidelines and by the quarterback on the field. For the leaner, flatterorganizations of the 1990's to prosper, it is essential that each individualunderstand how the new teams will work with less supervision and moreindividual responsibility. In addition, individuals suddenly made a part ofthese new organizations may need to develop new skills to maximum thecontribution each can make as a team member. The following is a discussion ofhow these new teams should function and who team members will be. The New Team Drucker predicts that future organizations will be information-based. Hesays that large companies will be structured to function more like hospitals, deemphasizing the "... command and control model that business took fromthe military 100 years ago. ... Typical business will be an organizationcomposed largely of specialists who direct and discipline their own performancethrough organized feedback from colleagues, customers, and headquarters. Tounderstand the hospital analogy better, consider the patient with a broken legwho finds himself in the local hospital's emergency room. The attendingphysician orders X-rays, which are taken by an X-ray technician. The necessaryinformation then may pass on to the patient's family physician or, pass on tothe patient's family physician or, depending on the severity of the break, toan orthopedic specialist. If blood work is required, the laboratory technicianwill be involved in the testing, and if surgery is needed, the anesthesiologistwill consult with the surgeon. later, as part of recovery, a physical therapistmay be called to aid with rehabilitation. Each of the various medical andparamedical specialties has its own knowledge, training, and even language. Thepatient is returned to health by the efforts of the team of specialists who hada common goal and worked together to reach that goal. Just as a medicalspecialist will treat more than one patient at a time, individuals in ourfuture organization will be required to function as members of many differentteams. The traditional departments (reservoir engineering, productionengineering, geology, financial, etc.) will not be where the real work is done. Instead, work will be done by a team made up of knowledgeable individuals fromvarious departments who will decide on a plan of action-and proceed with stepsto meet the goal. Just as in a hospital, once the team of specialists hasidentified the goal, input and approval from management on the action stepsneeded may do nothing but delay the process. JPT P. 266