A study published recently in Human Resource Management addresses a long-standing research debate about performance benefits of decentralised organisational structures by examining employees' individual reactions to decentralised decision making. The study developed a multi-level theory of leadership and organisational structure, which highlights the role of line managers' empowering leadership in shaping employee behaviours in response to decentralised structures. Results show that decentralisation can increase employees' propensity to emerge as informal leaders, and thereby indirectly enhance company performance, but only if the employees are simultaneously also empowered by their line managers. The study highlights the relevance of considering employee-level processes to understand the organisational-level effects of organisational structure and hierarchy.
Read the full article here.
Watch the interview with the authors here.
Read a Press Release about the article here.
------------------------------
Jelena Petrovic
Knowledge Transfer Editor, Human Resource Management
Associate Professor, University of Southampton, UK
------------------------------