MEANING AND DEFINITION OF LINE AND STAFF ORGANISATION
Line and Staff Organisation is a combination of both the line organisation and staff organisation. The drawback of line organisation is that it concentrates on control. The drawback of functional organisation is that in this form of organisation, every worker gets orders and instructions from many officers at one time which makes it difficult for him to discharge his duties properly. Line and staff organisation is that form of organisation which combines the advantages of both of these forms and tries to do away with their disadvantages. Because of this reason, this form of organisation is very popular and widely accepted and recognised.
In this form of organisation, the activities of business and industrial enterprises are divided into different independent departments. There is a head or chairman of each department who is fully responsible for the activities and performance of his department. In addition to these departmental heads, technical and managerial experts are also appointed in all the departments as consultants. The main functions of these experts are to advise these departmental heads with regard to the quantity of production, quality of production, technical knowledge and all other problems related to marketing, finance and advertisement. These experts are not directly related to the regular management and administration of business activities. They are supposed only to advise and not to decide. Decision power is vested only with the departmental heads.
Line and staff organisation has been defined as under:
"The specialist is introduced in an advisory capacity and without any apparent authority. Such organisation is known as line and staff organisation".
Dr Kimball and Kimball,
"Lines are those which have direct responsibility for accomplishing the objectives of the enterprise and staff refers to those elements of the organisation that help the line organisation to work most effectively in accomplishing the primary objectives of the enterprise.
Louis A. Allen,
Dr W. R. Spriegal, "The line and staff organisation in a modern enterprise is nearly always the departmental line organisation with staff functions added."
Dr W. R. Spriegal,
Thus, line and staff organisation is the combination of both the line organisation and staff organisation. The line portion of this organisation serves to maintain the unity of command and discipline. The staff portion provides expert advice to solve various technical and managerial problems. Officers of the line cadre are responsible for the real execution while the officers of the staff cadre are responsible for providing advice to them. The advice of the officers of the staff cadre is not binding on the officers of the line cadre. Thus, the unity of command is maintained by the line cadre and exert advice is made available by the staff cadre.
RELATED TOPIC
Characteristics of Human Resource Management
Objective of Human Resource Management
Scope of Human Resource Management
