- 11 Marks
BMIS – L1 – QB1 – Span of Control
Question
(a) Describe the circumstances under which you might find a narrow span of control.
(b)(i) State and justify whether you would expect to find a wide or a narrow span of control for the head of research in a small pharmaceuticals company.
(b)(ii) State and justify whether you would expect to find a wide or a narrow span of control for the site manager on a building construction site.
(b)(iii) State and justify whether you would expect to find a wide or a narrow span of control for the head of a department store.
(b)(iv) State and justify whether you would expect to find a wide or a narrow span of control for the fashion manager in a fashion design team.
Answer
(a). As a general rule, the span of control will be narrow when the manager has to spend a large proportion of his time with individual subordinates, for example time spent on monitoring and discussing work. A span of control is also likely to be narrower in a small organisation than in a large one, although this is not always true.
(bi). A narrow span of control. In a small research department, the head is likely to work closely with the other departmental members on research projects, and the span of control probably has to be fairly narrow. A manager may be appointed for each research project or each group of similar research projects.
(bii). A wide span of control. A site manager might have a fairly large number of individuals and team foremen reporting to him, particularly on a large site.
(biii). A wide span of control. A head of a department store probably has the head of each department reporting to him. In a large department, this could be a fairly large number of departmental heads.
(biv). A fashion design team is probably fairly small; therefore the head of a fashion design team will have only a narrow span of management control.
- Tags: Design Management, Management, Organisational Structure, Span of Control
- Level: Level 1
- Uploader: Samuel Duah