Dimensions of Organization Structure

Purchasing Organization and Design: A Literature Review

“…In the center of the framework, we locate the structural characteristics of the purchasing function, which represent alternative variables of POs. In reviewing the literature, we identified (de)centralization, formalization, configuration, specialization, involvement and standardization as the most commonly used structural variables in purchasing research (also Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, Macdonald, Turner, and Lupton 1963;Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, and Turner 1968). Works that study structural variables will be reviewed first to identify alternative dimensions of POs and to assess their importance.…”

“…(Robbins 1990: 4-7;Jones 1998: 11-12). In the past decades, researchers have tried to identify important characteristics of organizations and defined structural variables that may be interpreted as basic building blocks of organizations and that help to describe organizations in detail (Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, Macdonald, Turner, and Lupton 1963;Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, and Turner 1968;Price 1972;Mintzberg 1979: 65-213;Robbins 1990). Figure 3 gives an overview of the different structural variables that have been used in prior research to describe the organization of purchasing.…”

“…A further discussion of this variable can be found in Lau, Goh, and Phua (1999). The structural variable configuration refers to the design of the authority structure of the organization and includes dimensions such as vertical and lateral spans of control, criteria for segmentation, and numbers of positions in various segments (Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, Macdonald, Turner, and Lupton 1963;Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, and Turner 1968). A high degree of configuration in purchasing results in a PO that implements a high number of different design elements, such as positions, departments, formal communication channels or control structures, and that may thus better match the requirements of the purchase situation.…”

Should marketing be cross-functional? Conceptual development and international empirical evidence

“…The names of the SBUs included in our sample were derived from firm names obtained from Dun and Bradstreet in both the United States and in Germany. Because firm size has been shown to affect organizational dimensions (Pugh et al, 1968), we asked for equal numbers of firms in each industry sector in each country for each of four annual revenue size categories (US$25 million to US$67 million, US$67 million to US$333 million, US$333 million to US$1.3 billion, and over US$1.3 billion). The name of the person responsible for marketing in a specific SBU within the firm was identified from industry directories and telephone calls to the SBU.…”

Fleet purchase behavior: decision processes and implications for new vehicle technologies and fuels

“…Two of these dimensions ± centralization and formalization ± have been found to be particularly compelling in de®ning an organization's dominant decision-making structure (Fredrickson, 1986;James and Jones, 1976;Langley, 1990;Mintzberg, 1979;Pugh et al, 1968;Shrivastava and Grant, 1985). We found these two dimensions to be good indicators of a¯eet's decision-making behavior and thus they motivate our typology.…”