YOU ARE TO PRODUCE AN ANALYSIS OF THE USU OF MATRIX STRUCTURES IN THE BUSINESS CONTEXT.INVESTIGATE DIFFERENT USE OF THIS TECHNIQUE AND EVALUATE ITS USEFULLNESS.IN DOING THIS YOU SHOULD EXPLAIN AND USE SOME OF THE MAIN EXAMPLES THAT ARE COMMONLY ENCOUNTERE

The Matrix Structure

Many contemporary organisations , especially the small businesses in the United Kingdom and around the world are structured in the command and control ' hierarchical form (Pasternack Viscio 1998 . Although the contemporary fads of organisational behaviour are said to be responsible for the success of modern organisations , it is also a fact that the hierarchical structure of organisational design originated in the iron factories as well as the wool mills of Britain . This British organisational structure was later modified to suit the economic and business conditions of the times . Today

's organisations include giants such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP of the UK , ranked among the top ten Fortune Global 500 companies of 2006 . These organisations , and many more multinational corporations of the modern world , cannot simply use the command and control ' hierarchical form that the small business finds convenient for itself . The multinational organisation is known for its complexity in operations , with a variety of departments and departmental heads that are almost equally important in making the business what it is (Galbraith 2000 . In to meet the growing global needs of such giant corporations of the modern times , the matrix structure has evolved from the command and control ' hierarchical form to become the structure of choice among CEOs (Sy Cote 2004 ,

br 439

The CEO of a huge organisation such as BP cannot be expected to command and control ' every single business operation . Even departmental heads of global corporations are not held solely responsible for the functioning of their specific departments , seeing as there might be specialists in other departments that must be consulted for the tasks at hand . Rees Porter (2004 ) write that the organisational structure that directly opposes this coordination among departments is conventional line management , a form of organisational design that may very well obstruct organisational growth despite external circumstances that may be pushing for change , e .g . the introduction of new technologies . The Oxford University , for example uses conventional line management , which would not allow the university to take gigantic leaps in the disciplines of science and technology seeing as the lack of coordination among the university 's departments make it difficult for them to share resources . The matrix structure addresses this need for change , however , not only in universities but in all kinds of organisations . Rees Porter describe this need of the times thus

Problems in organisations , together with the provision of products and services , do not

always neatly correspond to departmental boundaries . Consequently it is often necessary for

multi-disciplinary teams to be established that straddle existing organisational boundaries

The leaders of such teams are likely to be based in a particular department but to be

responsible for the co-ordination of the activities of a number of staff [or employees] from

other departments . Whilst they are likely to remain accountable to their departmental head

they are also likely to be accountable to another line manager for the activity of the multi-

disciplinary team they lead . The need for such arrangements increases...