Distribution of Authority

Authority is the right of decision and control. A person has to execute tasks and to meet allocated responsibilities. To have authority means that a person has the liberty to make decisions without having them approved by their supervisors. For workers it refers to the control a person has over the work itself. For managers, authority points to the rights of decisions and liberty to use organization resources by themselves and by others for whom they are accountable for. It is essential because tasks and the responsibility for their performance are spread throughout the organization by the method of division of labour. It is one mechanism for co-ordination and incorporation of the work of members. Authority is distributed both horizontally and vertically in organization. The horizontal distribution of authority is a function of a degree of control and happens through decisions that are made in the departmentation process. The degree of control is the number of subordinates which report to a manager. It is influenced by elements such as the subordinate competence, the decision maker’s philosophy about the control, the nature of the work to be overseen and organization size and complexity. For given size organization, the degree of control will have an impact on the structure and the number of levels. When the degree of control is high, the horizontal dispersion of authority is greater and the organization will be flatter. Hence, it will have fewer organization levels. With a smaller degree of control, there will be less horizontal distribution of authority and the organization will be tall with more organization levels.

Centralization points to the level to which authority and power are distributed vertically in an organization. Organizations are decentralized when almost all decisions are made by those at lower level of the organization, directed by policies and procedure. They are highly centralized when decisions are made near the top of the organization hierarchy and the discretion of those at lower levels is inhibited by formal policies. The distribution of authority within the departmental structural is administered by the type of Organization and Organization Culture.