ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT STYLE

Abstract

Since the notion of “management style” can be defined in different ways, I need to make clear at the outset how I propose to use it. It is sometimes meant to refer to no more than the manager's personal mode of behaviour—to the ways in which he conducts his immediate social relations with colleagues and subordinates. How does he give orders, seek advice, bestow praise or blame? There is an abundance of literature devoted to what might be called the tactics of face‐to‐face relationships. Much of it is hardly above the level of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, but some provide insight that is valuable for anyone involved in leadership and authority relations. I shall, however, refer to it only in passing, not because I want to disparage it, but because I want to use the notion of management style in the much broader sense of an over‐all strategy for organisational design. Under this usage, style refers to management in one of its most fundamental dimensions—namely its responsibility for the design and mode of functioning of the organisation through which management hopes to achieve its purposes.

Citation

Fox, A. (1971), "ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT STYLE", Personnel Review, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 12-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055190