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Excess

The document discusses how understanding historical context helps explain why some current organizational structures exist, such as vertical hierarchies in older steel mills versus more horizontal structures in newer mini-mills that empower employees, with organizational structure being difficult to change due to inertia.

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Bhushan Purmessur
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24 views1 page

Excess

The document discusses how understanding historical context helps explain why some current organizational structures exist, such as vertical hierarchies in older steel mills versus more horizontal structures in newer mini-mills that empower employees, with organizational structure being difficult to change due to inertia.

Uploaded by

Bhushan Purmessur
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Understanding the historical context from which some of today's organizational structures have developed helps to explain why

some structures are the way they are. For instance, why are the old, but still operational steel mills such as U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel structured using vertical hierarchies? Why are newer steel mini-mills such as Chaparral Steel structured more horizontally, capitalizing on the innovativeness of their employees? Part of the reason, as this section discusses, is that organizational structure has a certain inertia the idea borrowed from physics and chemistry that something in motion tends to continue on that same path. Changing an organization's structure is a daunting managerial task, and the immensity of such a project is at least partly responsible for why organizational structures change infrequently.

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