Accounting technicians scheme west africa

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Advantages of line structure

(i) The line organisation is simple to operate. ii) Responsibility, authority, and accountability are all clearly spelt out and easily assignable and traceable. iii) Communication is fast and easy and feedback can be acted upon faster. iv) Due to small structural size, discipline and effective control can be easily exercised. v) Companies with line type of organization are usually small in size, hence personnel get to know each other better and tend to feel close to each other.

Disadvantages of line structure

(i) It is a rigid and inflexible form of organisation and there is a tendency for line authority to become dictatorial. ii) As the firm grows larger and the executive become overburdened with many duties, a purely line type of organisation become inadequate. iii) Line officers being too involved in day-to-day operations have little time for systematic and strategic planning. iv) Due to strict accountability, different departments maybe more interested in their self- interests, rather than overall organisational interest and welfare. v) There is no provision for specialists and specialization which are essential for growth and optimization.
C.10.2 Staff Authority
The staff refers to those persons in the organisation who provide advice and support service to the line staff. Inmost enterprises the use of the staff can be traced to the need to help in handling details, locating data required for decisions and offering counsel on specific managerial problems. The staff work consists of investigation, research, recording, standardization and actual execution of the work planned by the staff. It is often said that staff thinks while the line acts.
C.10.3 Staff Organisation Structure
The staff positions in an organisation may take the following forms a) Personal Staff They are meant to serve executives only. A managing director for example, may have a secretary to assist him in carrying various tasks such as attending to telephone calls, typing etc. b) Specialized Staff This staffs helps the line by performing work that requires special skills. Such specialists are in audit, research and development, and quality control. The services of specialized staff are available to the managers at all levels of the organisation.
As shown in Fig. 3.10, the line authorities are President, Vice President Production, Vice President (Sales. Vice President (Finance From the Vice President Production) we have Production Supervisor 1 and 2. The Legal Adviser of the company has a

154 staff relationship with the Vice Presidents and the Vice President (Sales) has a staff authority with the Production supervisor. Figure 3.10: Staff structure

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