Organizational Choice: Product vs. Function

Of all the issues facing a manager as he thinks about the form of his organization, one of the thorniest is the question of whether to group activities primarily by product or by function. Should all specialists in a given function be grouped under a common boss, regardless of differences in products they are involved in, or should the various functional specialists working on a single product be grouped together under the same superior?

Read full article at: https://hbr.org/1968/11/organizational-choice-product-vs-function

Problems of Matrix Organizations

No organization design or method of management is perfect. And any form can suffer from a variety of problems that develop because of the design itself. This is particularly true when a company tries a new form….

For generations managers lived with the happy fiction of dotted lines, indicating that a second reporting line was necessary if not formal. The result had always been a sort of executive ménage à trois, a triangular arrangement where the manager had one legitimate relationship (the reporting line) and one that existed but was not granted equal privileges (the dotted line).

Read full article at: https://hbr.org/1978/05/problems-of-matrix-organizations