Everything about Hierarchical Organization totally explained
A
hierarchical organisation structured in a way such that every entity in the organisation, except one, is
subordinate to a single other entity. This is the dominant mode of organisation among large organisations; most corporations, governments, and organized religions are hierarchical organisations.
Hierarchies denote a singular/group of power at the top, a number of assistants underneath and hundreds of servants beneath them.
Hierarchy originally meant "rule by priests", and it's from the organisation of hierarchical churches such as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches that the name of this concept arises. In these organisations, the
pope or
patriarch was the highest visible part of the hierarchy, with God as the nominal top of the hierarchy.
The modern sense of the word came about as a result of the hierarchical way in which the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches were organised. It may be useful to visualize a
pyramidal
power structure, those nearest the top have more power than those nearest the bottom, and there being fewer people at the top then at the bottom. As a result, superiors in a hierarchy generally have higher status and command greater rewards than their subordinates.
All governments and most companies have similar structures. Traditionally, the
monarch was the pinnacle of the
state. In many countries,
feudalism and
manorialism provided a formal social structure that established hierarchical links at every level of society, with the monarch at the top.
In modern post-feudal states the nominal top of the hierarchy still remains the
head of state, which may be a
president or a
constitutional monarch, although in many modern states the powers of the head of state are to one degree or another delegated among different bodies; commonly a
senate,
parliament or
congress, which in turn often delegate the day-to-day running of the country to a
prime minister. In many
democracies, the people are considered to be the notional top of the hierarchy, over the head of state; in reality, the people's power is restricted to voting in elections.
In business, the business owner traditionally occupied the pinnacle of the organisation. In most modern large companies, there's now no longer a single dominant shareholder, and the collective power of the business owners is for most purposes delegated to a
board of directors, which in turn delegates the day-to-day running of the company to a
managing director or
CEO. Again, although the shareholders of the company are the nominal top of the hierarchy, in reality many companies are run at least in part as personal fiefdoms by their management;
corporate governance rules are an attempt to mitigate this tendency.
Members of hierarchical organisational structures chiefly communicate with their immediate superior and with their immediate subordinates. Structuring organisations in this way is useful partly because it can reduce the communication overhead by limiting information flow; this is also its major limitation.
Not all organisations have this structure. The opposite extreme is described as
Flat organisation" or "single-level".
Studies of hierarchical organizations
The
organizational development theorist
Elliott Jacques identified a special role for hierarchy in his concept of
requisite organisation.
The
iron law of oligarchy, introduced by
Robert Michels, describes the inevitable tendency of hierarchial organisations to become
oligarchic in their decision making.
Hierarchiology is the term coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter, originator of the
Peter Principle described in his humorous book of the same name, to refer to the study of hierarchical organisations and the behavior of their members.
Criticism and alternatives
In the work of diverse theorists such as
William James (1842-1910),
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and
Hayden White, important critiques of hierarchical epistemology are advanced. James famously asserts in his work "Radical Empiricism" that clear distinctions of type and category are a constant but unwritten goal of scientific reasoning, so that when they're discovered, success is declared. But if aspects of the world are organized differently, involving inherent and intractable ambiguities, then scientific questions are often considered unresolved. A hesitation to declare success upon the discovery of ambiguities leaves heterarchy at an artificial and subjective disadvantage in the scope of human knowledge. This bias is an artifact of an aesthetic or pedagogical preference for hierarchy, and not necessarily an expression of objective observation.
Hierarchies and hierarchical thinking has been criticized by many people, including
Susan McClary and one branch of political philosophy which is vehemently opposed to hierarchical organisation: the
libertarian socialist branch of
anarchism is generally opposed to hierarchical organisation in any form of human relations.
Heterarchy is the most commonly-proposed alternative to hierarchy and this has been combined with
Responsible Autonomy by
Gerard Fairtlough in his work on
Triarchy theory.
Further Information
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