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Decentralised Structure

In: Business and Management

Submitted By chalater
Words 1668
Pages 7
LATERRE Charlotte
Reg No : 0848117

AC114 Introduction to Management
Spring term essay

Wednesday 11th March, 2009 (week 24)

Word count : 1499 words

« In this age of hyper-competition, organisations should adopt a decentralised structure ».

Businesses have entered in a new era, the era of hyper-competition, more competitive as they become more global. Business has shifted dramatically from a slow-moving stable environment to an environment where competitive advantages are no longer sustainable but temporary as new competitors enter the market. Aveni argues that, to have a chance to survive in this constantly changing environment, firms should adopt a new strategy that best suits with these unpredictable variations.
In recent years, organisations have been reassessing their strategy and structure because of this growing competition, thinking that their success is widely related with re-matching to its environment. (Johnson, 1988; Miller and Friesen, 1980)
Tom Peter (1987) and Michael Porter (1990) claimed that adopting this attribute if changing ability will in some sense guarantee competitive advantage.
In this assignment, we will base our discussion on managing theories in order to explain organisations’ structure choice by describing how they respond to their changing context. We will comment on the view that structure depends on the contingency theory and contrast both decentralised and centralised structure in each contingency factor, using resources to support statements. Finally, we shall decide which structure best fits with this context of hyper-competition.

It is possible to characterize the hyper-competition by “diverse global players, new competitors, short-term competitive advantage, rapid technological change, unpredictable environment, instability, uncertainty, organisations adaptability and so on…” To be suited to these

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