What is Organisation?
Organisation refers to a collection of people who are working towards a common goal and objective.
In other words, it can be said that organisation is a place where people assemble together and
perform different sets of duties and responsibilities towards fulfilling the organisational goals.
Types of Organisations and their Structure
There are two broad categories of organisation, which are:
1. Formal Organisation
2. Informal Organisation
Formal Organisation: Formal organisation is that type of organisation structure where the authority
and responsibility are clearly defined. The organisation structure has a defined delegation of
authority and roles and responsibilities for the members.
The formal organisation has predefined policies, rules, schedules, procedures and programs. The
decision making activity in a formal organisation is mostly based on predefined policies.
Formal organisation structure is created by the management with the objective of attaining the
organisational goals.
There are several types of formal organisation based on their structure, which are discussed as
follows:
1. Line Organisation
2. Line and Staff Organisation
3. Functional Organisation
4. Project Organisation
5. Matrix Organisation
Let us learn about these organisation structures in detail in the following lines.
Line Organisation: Line organisation is the simplest organisation structure and it also happens to be
the oldest organisation structure. It is also known as Scalar or military or departmental type of
organisation.
In this type of organisational structure, the authority is well defined and it flows vertically from the
top to the hierarchy level to the managerial level and subordinates at the bottom and continues
further to the workers till the end.
There is a clear division of accountability, authority and responsibility in the line organisation
structure.
Advantages of Line organisation
1. Simple structure and easy to run
2. Instructions and hierarchy clearly defined