1. How do flat organizations differ from traditional bureaucratic hierarchies?

Flat Organization try to minimize headcount and maximize agility by eliminating

management hierarchy. User Friendly software and low-cost web based service are used to store
corporate data, analyze the data and present the results in dashboards that anyone in the
firm can use. Flat organization allow all employee to access the same data as its top manager.

“Holocracies” allow workers to manage themselves without the aid of middle managers. Instead these

types of organization use overlapping, self governing circles and roles. Each role belongs to a circle

rather than a department. The circles overlap and individual hold many different roles.

2. How has information technology made it possible to eliminate middle manager positions?

At Chubbies clothing start-up, an event planner working alone can use an array of dashboards to

determine exactly how many Facebook likes, Instagram posts, and sales arose from a particular event,

and she is able to decide on her own whether future events should be scheduled. With the right data

and tools to back up her decision, she doesn’t need a manager to validate her choices.

Roles in circles work together and their meeting outcomes are recorded using web based software

called Glass-Frog. This system allows anyone in the company to view who’s responsible for what role

and what they’re working on. Glass Frog provide a “to-do”list that teams use to define the work

they’re supposed to be doing and to hold themselves accountable for those tasks.

3. What management, organization, and technology issues would you consider if you wanted to

move from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization?

Management - Managers must be confident in themselves and in their employees.

Organization - The most common reason large IT projects fail is not the failure of technology, but

because of organizational and political resistance to change. People Simply don’t like the change and

will resist it in a variety of ways. New information systems require changes in personal, individual

routines that can be painful for those involved and required retraining and additional effort that may

or may not be compensated.

Technology- information technology flattens or reduces the level of hierarchy in an

organization because information flows more freely and more widely through the firm. Decision making
is pushed to lower levels of the hierarchy. Managers make decision faster and better because more
information is available more quickly and accurately, thanks to information technology.
Professional workers become more self-managing. Decision making becomes more decentralized,
workers rotate from team to team depending on the task on hands.
4. Can technology replace managers? Explain your answer.

As zappos.com has found out, with experience and expertise downplayed, less senior employees with

fresh ideas receive more attention. Introverts have benefited from the expectation that everybody

speak in meetings. Other employees were confused and frustrated by numerous mandates, endless

meetings and uncertainty about who did what. To whom would they report to if there were no

bosses? What was expected of them if they did not have a clear job tittles, and how would they be

compensated? Within weeks after zappos embraced holocracy, about 14 percent of employees had

left the company. The employee exodus has continued. Zappo’s turnover rate for 2015 was 30 percent,

10 percentage points above it’s typical annual attrition rate.

According to Quy Huy, Professor Of strategy at the Singapore Campus of Prestigious graduate business

School, Middle manager are often vilified as symptoms of corporate bloat, but things fall
apart without them.