>[!External Links]- >[Book chapter](x-devonthink-item://DD7173EB-0045-4C4C-8CBE-5EAD53C2F159?page=221) Taken from [[The Structuring of Organisations]] by Mintzberg. ## Intro - Designed for sophisticated innovation. NASA level stuff. - Not about performance or standard outputs, like [[Professional Bureaucracy]]. About innovation. - Organic structure with little formalisaiton of behaviour - Specialists deployed in small market-based project teams - must avoid standard trappings of a bureaucracy- sharp divisions of labour, extensive unit differentiation, highly formalised behaviours, and an emphasis on planning and control. - Shows little reverence for managers/ command-and-control. - Mutual adjustment is the principle mechanism used, and a set of liaison devices used to encourage it. - Lots and lots of managers are included in a adhocracy due to number of projects. [[Span of control]] is narrow as the teams tend to be small. - Managers spend a lot of time in liaison and negotiation roles, co-ordinating work laterally - Selective decentralisation takes place, and power is distributed among managers and non-managers at all levels of the hierarchy. ## Compared to [[Professional Bureaucracy]] - Adhocracies cannot rely on standardised skills of experts to achieve co-ordination (like a professional bureaucracy)- this would result in standardisation instead of innovation. - Adhocracy workers must work together in teams, whereas the professional bureaucracy can work on their own. Adhocracies use multi-disciplinary teams to produce innovations. ## "Operating Adhocracy" - This is opposed to the "administrative adhocracy" - Innovates and solves problems directly on behalf of its clients - Often linked to a professional bureaucracy, which takes the divergent thinking already done and exploits it (via convergence). This also describes universities. - Administrative and operating work tends to blend into a single effort/ entity. - Managers are functioning members of the project teams, with responsibility for coordination. Act as peers rather than supervisors. Servant leadership. - Power over decision making is more meritocratic - Has "little need for a technostructure" to develop systems for regulation. - Control of the strategy in an adhocracy is not placed at the strategic apex- it is elsewhere. - "Action planning cannot be relied upon in the Adhocracy. Any process that separates conceptualization from action-planning from execution, formulation from implementation-impedes the flexibility of the organization to respond creatively to its uncertain environment." But NPM forces this to occur. >[!REFLECTION]+ >- Universities are likely to be a hybrid model, between adhocracies with their research business, and [[Professional Bureaucracy]] with their teaching business. >- The administration of a modularised teaching environment uses the [[The Hollywood model]] to bring different experts together. >- Unis use adhocracies to develop research to create divergence, and then use a professional bureaucracy to converge ideas and sell them as teaching >- "Administrative and operating work tends to blend into a single effort" - this creates more issues for Universities as there needs to be administrators who are a part of the [[Professional Bureaucracy]] and those who are a part of the [[Adhocracy]]. This probably gave rise to the "academic administrator" roles that we're seeing at the moment, as these roles are seen to have legitimacy. >- NPM has forced action planning on the academics through the [[Professional Bureaucracy]] and, to an extent, through the Adhocracy too. Although I don't know enough about research funding so cant comment. ## Summary ![[CleanShot 2022-08-07 at 14.53.02.png]] ## Previous notes Adhocracy is characterized by an adaptive, creative and flexible integrative behavior based on non-permanence and spontaneity. It is believed that these characteristics allow adhocracy to respond faster than traditional [[Bureaucracy|bureaucratic]] organizations while being more open to new ideas Some characteristics of Mintzberg's definition include: - highly organic structure - little formalisation of behaviour - job specialisation not necessarily based on formal training - a tendency to group the specialists in functional units for housekeeping purposes but to deploy them in small, market-based project teams to do their wor - a reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment within and between these team - low or no standardisation of procedure - roles not clearly define - selective decentralisation - work organisation rests on specialised team - power-shifts to specialised teams - horizontal job specialisation - high cost of communication - culture based on non-bureaucratic work