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Centralization

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Centralization versus decentralization
Every organization must establish whether its decision-making policies are centralized or decentralized. Highly centralized companies tend to have more bureaucratic traits, while highly decentralized companies tend to appear more out of control. Both extremes appear engulfed with inefficiencies and waste. High performance work systems seem to have more decentralized decision-making features, yet their culture, formed around their philosophy and values, is highly centralized. Creating a centralized philosophy and value system allows employees to become more empowered to make their own decisions, leading to decentralization. Centralization versus decentralization is an issue of control. Top executives make many decisions in a centralized organization and convey the decisions to managers at lower levels, creating a top-down management style. All divisions and locations are expected to adhere to policies and procedures approved by top-level managers. While this may seem like all employees are expected to conform to one way of thinking, stifling creative problem solving, centralization creates streamlined processes and allows the entire organization to utilize the same resources throughout the company. This can create process efficiency, but centralization typically does not allow employees to make and implement their own decisions without approval from levels higher up. Decentralization is characterized by relatively few layers of management, with few centralized policies and procedures. Each group, whether a division, location, or team, creates its own practices based mostly on the organization’s core philosophy and values. This may seem inefficient since each process is reproduced multiple times and employees require additional training when trained resources are available within the company already. The use of

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