Management Principle

Based on the information available in the case, sketch the picture of the original structure within an Abraham’s store and he store managers’ relationship with district specialist managers. What type on structure is this?

Abraham and her sister Doris were the owners of a very successful yet small grocery shop. They worked hard and in no time they had over 200 grocery shops all over the nation. Their stores were now divided among 4 regional managers, who had the responsibility to look after 50 stores under them. There was further division of management among the 4 district managers who had the responsibility of 12-13 stores each under them (Nair, 2009). There are also different departments in the stores known as the meat, grocery and the produce departments which are looked after by each individual managers. The grocery managers are also made the store managers as he has to look after the grocery section as well as the whole store. It is the responsibility of the store managers to report to the district supervisor and further the district supervisor reports to the district specialist officer (Mancini, 2003). Though the store manager has no direct control over the meat and the produce mangers, but he can request his intentions to the respective managers in case of any issue being reported.

The organisational structure of the stores represents the activities carried out in the stores like that of supervision, co-ordination and allocation which are allocated keeping in mind the success of the organisational objectives (Romaine, 2014). There is also a special organisational chart that can be drawn for the structure, which is also dependent on the objectives of the organisation. The actual organisational chart of the Abraham’s Grocery store is given below where the different relations between the store manager and the district specialists are given (Lusch, Dunne & Gable, 2004).

The chart given above has been further categorised into two types of divisional structure as well as the functional structure. In order to operate the organisation smoothly, it is important that both the structures are followed.

Divisional structure

In such structure the specific work of every employee is divided and highlighted. The division of work helps to do the work faster. As for example it can be seen that the manager for the meat, grocery and produce never interfere in each other’s division. In this organisation the divisional structure is evident even in the top level management like that of district supervisor, district meat manager and produce manager specialists. All of them are responsible for their own departments (Hill BSc(Econ, 2003).

Functional structure

In such a structure the importance is given to the communication of information between the departments. It is done so as to allocate the tasks of supervising and allocation among themselves. In such organisational structure the functional structure is generally evident in bottom level management like that of the meat, produce and the grocery department in the stores (Hasty & Reardon, 2007).