Matrix Organisation

As an organisation grows, its structure normally becomes more complex. It adds tasks, departments, people, and hierarchical levels. Advances in technology make tasks more complex. Advanced tasks require more specialists. The structure may need to be adjusted to integrate and coordinate activities in large, technologically complex organisations. The matrix structure may be used to overcome some of the coordination, decision-making, and control problems that arise in such organisations. 

A matrix organisation combines the product and functional forms of departmentalization to focus on complex special projects or continuing programmes. 

As seen in matrix organisation chart given in Figure, the broken lines represent the product manager cutting across the functions. Generally, the product manager and his senior staff are permanently assigned to the project, whereas the individuals who are temporarily drawn to the project are still assigned to their "functional home" offices. Further, you can seen that the employees assigned to a particular product (A or B) have a dual reporting relationship. For example, an engineering employee assigned to product A reports to both the Engineering Manager and the Product Manager A. The Engineering Manager is responsible for problems requiring engineering expertise (standards and procedures). The precinct manager is responsible for coordinating and controlling all the activities relating to product A, including budgetary responsibility. The product manager and the engineering manager both report to the same higher-level manager. 

  Matrix Organized Chart 

Benefits 

• The matrix design allows a company to specialise its technical expertise and to assign specific  responsibility for each product/project. 
• Because of the existence of the functional home offices from which the programme can draw resources, the matrix can be quite flexible as the programme progresses through the different programme life cycle phases. 
• Functional personnel can be assigned to the programmes with little resultant duplication of personnel. 

Drawbacks 

• In the functional foam, it is generally perceived that the functional manager has the legitimate authority, reward power, and coercive power to direct the personnel. In the project form, the project/programrne manager has the authority and power to direct the project staff. But in the matrix, it is usually ambiguous because the functional and programme lagers normally share the authority and power. 
• The assignment of search resources (particularly personnel) to two managers (the functional and project managers) by definition leads to conflict. For example, if the functional wager wants an engineer to work on a problem at the home office, and the B product manager requires phisher efforts as well as the C product manager, simultaneously, who resolves the conflict ?