Consulting business requires constant intellectual input with minimal barriers to decision-making. Teams are the most appropriate organizational structure for meeting the demands of such an enterprise. The reason for this choice is that consulting business does not produce physical products that require specialization and hierarchical division. Teams presuppose a bottom-up leadership approach, in which employees are directly involved in decision-making, which makes consulting services more effective.
The nature of consulting business does not demand a rigid structure. As there are no departments, all team members will have similar duties, which will complement each other (Burton & Obel, 2018). The manager is the only authoritative element representing a chain of command, while the overall management is decentralized. All communications between the manager and the employees should be informal to promote a sense of teamwork.
The most appropriate organizational theory is contingency/situational theory. It assumes that circumstances determine the most effective way of organizing the decision-making process. This theory supports the chosen organizational structure because it allows subordinates to make timely decisions without managerial participation, which is cost-effective (Burton & Obel, 2018). This flexibility is also crucial to understanding what makes teams effective at conducting consulting services – quick colleague feedback is as valuable as input from the manager.
Organizational structure can have a significant influence on the effectiveness of the consulting business. In fact, grouping employees into teams seem practical because it groups people with similar tasks and matching skills together, boosting work efficiency. Indeed, effective team communication and collaboration can produce faster and better solutions than an individual. In consulting business, a group of people working in concert on one specific question can develop a more appropriate answer because several professionals will view the problem from various angles. The goal-approach model of organizational effectiveness requires an evaluation of the firm’s performance based on the results it attained (Van Vulpen, 2020). The advantage of the selected structure is that the goal-approach model is easier to apply to a smaller group’s results. The drawback of this structure is that misunderstanding between team members may hinder projects. It means that if employees cannot quickly resolve an issue due to a lack of cooperation, the enterprise will suffer from administrative inefficiency.
References
Burton, R. M., & Obel, B. (2018). The science of organizational design: Fit between structure and coordination.Journal of Organization Design, 7(1), 1-13.
Van Vulpen, E. (2020). A practitioner’s guide to organizational effectiveness. AIHR.