The impact of organisational structure on employee performance : a comparative study

This stuct.y focuses on a new way of looking at organisational
structure and its effects on the performance of those within
the organisation. Two large firms with different organisational
structure were used. in this study. Company A (with
flat structure) provided 1 ·14 samples while company B ( wi th
tall structure) provided 121 samples.
Data were col1ected by the use of questionnaire. The
questionnaire has three parts. The first part consists of
independent vatiables. In the second part, there are
dependent variables. The third part consists of open-ended
questions. Three types of analyses were made use of. In
the first, a chi-square analysis was usect. to examine the
overall relationship between the i:ndependent variables and
measures of the organisational structure. The strength of
this relationship was also tested using the contigency coefficient.
Thirdly, Z - statistic~·was used to test for the
difference between the means of organisational structure
variables and employee performance variables.
It was found that whether in flat or tall organisation,
when employees are clearly informed of their dutier:i in wri ting,
they will put in more effort to increase output. Participation
in decisions was also found to be positively related to job
satisfaction in both structures. Understaffing of department
relative to others departments was found to have a negative
e:t":t"ect on the level of output of employees in bath organisations.
The resul ts suggests that employees in anji\.fo~:, of structural
set up will use initiative on the job if given the authority
that equals the assigned responsibility. The study revealed
that formalisation is positively related to job commitment and
quality consciousness, different structures notwithstanding.
Age of employee was found to be positively related to job
satisfaction in flat organisation but negatively related in
a tall organisation.