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| Structures | Advantages | Disadvantages |
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| Linear: companies which dedicate to produce one or few products in a specific market, generally the owner and the manager is the same person | Allows to gather several experts in a team; helps to mitigate conflicts between areas; increases motivation and commitment; it is oriented towards final results; identification of responsibilities of each boss; and it is fast and dynamic, low cost, close relationship with subordinates. | Rigid and inflexible; lack of flexibility to adapt to the growth of the company; indispensable hierarchy levels and difficult to replace if it is necessary; and little specialization of staff due to the fact that they are derived to several duties. |
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| Matrix: grouping of materials and human resources available in projects, creating teams with members of various areas looking for a common objective. The employees within the matrix have two bosses; a boss of function and the boss of the project | Allows to gather various experts in a team; helps to mitigate conflicts between areas; increases motivation and commitment; improves flexibility and communication, coordination and communication; identification of responsibilities of each boss; allows more efficiency in the use of resources. | Not all the companies can apply it; it requires a lot of balance, capital, coordination, and processing of information; conflict of authority; possibility of disunity between the command; stress among their members; high bureaucratic and operation costs; requires an effective manager in human relations; and scarce definition of priorities and use of resources. |
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| By departmentalization: works through the departments with different functions. (1) Function of the company: is to group the activities according to the functions of a company: production, sales and finances. (2) By product: is to group the activities according to products or line of products, especially in big companies of multiple lines. (3) Territory: is to group activities by area or territory, is common in companies that operate in wide geographic areas. (4) Group of clients: is to group the activities which reflect a primary interest in the clients. | (1) Clearly identify responsibilities; facilitates mutual support; follows the principle occupational specialization; and it widens the training. (2) Pays attention and effort in the product line; allows the growth and diversity of products and services; improves the coordination of functional and activities, places the responsibility of the utilities at a divisional level. (3) Adaptation to the zone; more control; fast decisions; gives importance to the market and local problems; and improves the coordination of the region. (4) Encourage the approach in the needs of the clients; specialized sellers; decrease in costs; and develops experience in the areas of clients. | (1) It diminishes importance to the general objectives of the company; it reduced the coordination between functions and has slow adaptation to new conditions. (2) Requires staff with management skills and makes control more difficult for senior management. (3) Makes integration difficult between the different geographic divisions and trend to discriminate between the geographic zones in relation to the matrix house. (4) It difficulty the coordination between departments; the group of clients cannot always be defined and requires managers and expert staff in clients problems. |
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| Circular: the authority levels are concentric integrated by a central square around which are the subordinates. In each one of these circles, are placed the immediate bosses and are linked to the lines that represent the channels of authority and responsibilities. | Points very well the importance of the hierarchic levels; eliminate or decrease the idea of the level of status; and allow more number of positions by level. | Sometimes the organization chart can be confusing and difficult to read; difficulty adding levels where there is only one official and force the levels too much. |
| Hybrid: this structure gathers some of the important characteristics of the previous structures. Combines the characteristics of diverse approaches adapting them to the strategic specific needs and using the advantages of the different structures. This type of structuring is mainly used when companies grow and have several products and markets. | Facilitates adaptability and effectiveness inside the divisions of products and efficiency in the functional departments; good alignment between product and corporative objectives; and effective coordination of divisions, department and zones. | Accumulation of corporative personnel to supervise divisions; generation of indirect administrative costs; loss of approach in the market and conflicts between the corporative personnel and the divisional. |
| Monofunctional: the authority concentrates in one person or group of persons who make decisions. | Low maintenance cost; clear accounting; management; head of production; and supervision. | Need of a good manager; little planning; little control and without operative levels. |
| Hierarchic: also known as functional departmentalization, represents the structural organization. | Well-defined chain of command; defined patterns of advance; staff specialization; general manager; manager assistant; submanagers; heads; and supervisors. | Few flexibility; communication barriers; and organizational disunity. |
| Decentralized: evolution and variation of hierarchic, the decision making is entrusted to a plurality of autonomous divisions with base on lines of products and/or territories, leaving the strategic decisions to the highest levels and the tactical decisions to the autonomous divisions. | Approach of the senior managers in key decisions and training of low level managers. | High level of bad decision making by the managers and little control of senior managers. |
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| Not pyramidal: are based on matrices that start vertically from the authority and the horizontal line of responsibility on a specific project; in the intersection of the lines, it gives a contribution or support of a functional character. | Delegation of responsibilities to the employees; improves their motivation; decision making by the people with greater knowledge of the area; and supports the senior manager to the middle managers and the operatives. | The structural incompatibility with the traditional form; unprepared employees slow down the development of the company; and ignorance of the senior manager about the operative part. |
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