Ajeevika Case

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Also, like in any other flat organization, in Ajeevika there is less dominance and supervision. While there is still mixed opinion as to if this feature works in favour or against in the organization, logic dictates that if there is less management, less time it would take for the said managers to micromanage and helicopter the employees in the organization. This in turn leads to high sense of responsibility among the employees and an over-all more productive work day.

Flat structures also have few disadvantages, which penetrates Ajeevika as well. Firstly, there is a loss of control in the organization. When the ratio of employees to managers is very large, there may come a situation when there are very few people to put brakes or control the bad behaviour. Also, there might be even lesser people who would back those people on their decisions. Secondly, there is sometimes some amount of work relationship struggle. Due to high employee to manager ratio, there are many employees to be managed by one manager. In this scenario, managers often find it difficult to connect with each and every employee on a personal level. This can at times, significantly impact the morale and respect of a company on all the level of authority. However, for Ajeevika the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantaged of the flat organization structure.

FIVE STRUCTURAL CONFIGURATIONS:

Mintzberg argued that there are five basic parts of an organization (See Firgure 2).

As seen above, Ajeevika follows the Adhocracy organizational structure. The company follows an open and decentralized rather than highly structured, configuration with low formalization and order. It is designed such that it combines interdisciplinary experts into smoothly functioning ad hoc project work teams. In Ajeevika, based on the H. Mintzberg’s five structural configurations of organization, the prime coordinating mechanism in the organization is mutual adjustment. The degree of horizontal specialization dependent on formal training and expertise is very high. There is selective decentralization. Also the key part of the organization is the support staff.

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Ajeevika follows a three level approach during the process of goal setting as well as decision making. The three levels are top, medium and low. During goal-setting, the organization follows the concept of SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.