International Organisational Structures as Coordination Mechanism

Abstract

Organisational structures can be understood to represent the “anatomy” of the organisation. They describe the formal design of the organisation’s resources and responsibilities. Different organisational structures lead to different behaviours of the employees because the structure and the subordination in hierarchies define the focus of an employee’s work as well as the official channels of knowledge transfer. The aim of this Chapter is to give an overview of organisational structures and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each structure.