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{ were the first to officially use this organizational structure after it emerged in the early 1960s.

Pyramids or hierarchical

A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads other individual members of the organization. This arrangement is often associated with the basis that there are enough to imagine a real pyramid, if there are not enough stone blocks to hold up the higher ones, gravity would irrevocably bring down the monumental structure. So one can imagine that if the leader does not have the support of his subordinates, the entire structure will collapse. Hierarchies were satirized in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

Theories

In the social sciences, organizations are the object of analysis for a number of disciplines, such as sociology, economics, political science, psychology, management, and organizational communication. The broader analysis of organizations is commonly referred to as organizational structure, organizational studies, organizational behavior, or organization analysis. A number of different perspectives exist, some of which are compatible:

• From a functional perspective, the focus is on how entities like businesses or state authorities are used.
• From an institutional perspective, an organization is viewed as a purposeful structure within a social context.
• From a process-related perspective, an organization is viewed as an entity being (re-)organized, and the focus is on the organization as a set of tasks or actions.

Sociology can be defined as the science of the institutions of modernity; specific institutions serve a function, akin to the individual organs of a coherent body. In the social and political sciences in general, an "organization" may be more loosely understood as the planned, coordinated, and purposeful action of human beings working through collective action to reach a common goal or construct a tangible product. This action is usually framed by formal membership and form (institutional rules). Sociology distinguishes the term organization into planned formal and unplanned informal (i.e. spontaneously formed) organizations. Sociology analyses organizations in the first line from an institutional perspective. In this sense, the organization is an enduring arrangement of elements. These elements and their actions are determined by rules so that a certain task can be fulfilled through a system of coordinated division of labor.

Economic approaches to organizations also take the division of labor as a starting point. The division of labor allows for (economies of) specialization. Increasing specialization necessitates coordination. From an economic point of view, markets and organizations are alternative coordination mechanisms for the execution of transactions.

An organization is defined by the elements that are part of it (who belongs to the organization and who does not?), its communication (which elements communicate and how do they communicate?), its autonomy (which changes are executed autonomously by the organization or its elements?), and its rules of action compared to outside events (what causes an organization to act as a collective actor?).

By coordinated and planned cooperation of the elements, the organization is able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities of the single element. The price paid by the elements is the limitation of the degrees of freedom of the elements. Advantages of organizations are enhancement (more of the same), addition (combination of different features), and extension. Disadvantages can be inertness (through coordination) and loss of interaction.

Among the theories that are or have been influential are:

• Activity theory is the major theoretical influence, acknowledged by de Clodomir Santos de Morais in the development of Organization Workshop method.
• Actor–network theory, an approach to social theory and research, originating in the field of science studies, which treats objects as part of social networks.
• Complexity theory and organizations, the use of complexity theory in the field of strategic management and organizational studies.
• Contingency theory, a class of behavioral theories that claim that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions.
• Critical management studies, a loose but extensive grouping of theoretically informed critiques of management, business, and organization, grounded originally in a critical theory perspective
• Economic sociology, studies both the social effects and the social causes of various economic phenomena.
• Enterprise architecture, the conceptual model that defines the coalescence of organizational structure and organizational behavior.
• Garbage Can Model, describes a model which disconnects problems, solutions, and decision-makers from each other.
• Principal–agent problem, concerns the difficulties in motivating one party (the "agent"), to act in the best interests of another (the "principal") rather than in his or her own interests
• Scientific management (mainly following Frederick W. Taylor), a theory of management that analyses and synthesizes workflows.
• Social entrepreneurship, the process of pursuing innovative solutions to social problems.
• Transaction cost theory, the idea that people begin to organize their production in firms when the transaction cost of coordinating production through the market exchange, given imperfect information, is greater than within the firm.
• Weber's Ideal of Bureaucracy (refer to Max Weber's chapter on "Bureaucracy" in his book Economy and Society)

Leadership

A leader in a formal, hierarchical organization, is appointed to a managerial position and has the right to command and enforce obedience by virtue of the authority of his position. However, he must possess adequate personal attributes to match his authority, because authority is only potentially available to him. In the absence of sufficient personal competence, a manager may be confronted by an emergent leader who can challenge his role in the organization and reduce it to that of a figurehead. However, only the authority of position has the backing of formal sanctions. It follows that whoever wields personal influence and power can legitimize this only by gaining a formal position in the hierarchy, with commensurate authority.

Formal organizations

An organization that is established as a means for achieving defined objectives has been referred to as a formal organization. Its design specifies how goals are subdivided and reflected in subdivisions of the organization. Divisions, departments, sections, positions, jobs, and tasks make up this work structure. Thus, the formal organization is expected to behave impersonally in regard to relationships with clients or with its members. According to Weber's definition, entry and subsequent advancement is by merit or seniority. Each employee receives a salary and enjoys a degree of tenure that safeguards him from the arbitrary influence of superiors or of powerful clients. The higher his position in the hierarchy, the greater his presumed expertise in adjudicating problems that may arise in the course of the work carried out at lower levels of the organization. It is this bureaucratic structure that forms the basis for the appointment of heads or chiefs of administrative subdivisions in the organization and endows them with the authority attached to their position.

Informal organizations

In contrast to the appointed head or chief of an administrative unit, a leader emerges within the context of the informal organization that underlies the formal structure. The informal organization expresses the personal objectives and goals of the individual membership. Their objectives and goals may or may not coincide with those of the formal organization. The informal organization represents an extension of the social structures that generally characterize human life – the spontaneous emergence of 2022}}

• TheTransitioner.org: a site dedicated to collective intelligence and structure of organizations

v t e Aspects of workplaces
Topics	Absenteeism Abusive supervision Aggression Anti-pattern Artificial intelligence Bullying Climate Culture Computer surveillance Conflict Control freak Counterproductive behaviour Coworking Culture of fear Democracy Deviance Discrimination Diversity Divide and rule Drug tests Effects of overtime Emotional labor Emotions Employee assistance Employee engagement Employee experience Employee monitoring Employee morale Employee recognition Employee silence Employee surveys Empowerment Evaluation Feminisation Generations Goofing off Gossip Happiness Harassment Health promotion Health surveillance Hostile work environment Humor Incivility Inequality Intervention Jargon Kick the cat Kiss up kick down Listening Machiavellianism Menopause Micromanagement Mobbing Narcissism Office politics Overwork Parkinson's law Performance appraisal Personality clash Phobia Positive psychology Privacy Probation Profanity Psychopathy Quality of working life Queen bee syndrome Rat race Relationships Revenge Robotics safety Role conflict Sabotage Spirituality Strategy Stress Toxic workplace Toxic leader Training Turnover Undermining Violence Virtual Wellness Work–family conflict Workload Workplace harassment Workwear
See also	Corporation Employment Factory Headquarters Job Job sharing Labour movement Labor rights Office Organization Remote work Strike action Trade union Whistleblower
Templates	Aspects of corporations Aspects of jobs Aspects of occupations Aspects of organizations Employment

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3. Knowles, Henry P.; Saxberg, Borje O. (1971). Personality and Leadership Behavior. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. pp. 884–89. OCLC 118832.
4. Barnard, Chester I. (1938). The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. OCLC 555075.
5. Gibb, Cecil A. (1970). Leadership: Selected Readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140805176. OCLC 174777513.

• Organizations