A Brief Analysis of the Structure and Design of Typerite Ltd.

Typrite is a relatively small family owned private limited company based in Warrenpoint, Co. Down. It was established in 1985 and is involved in the manufacturing and distribution of a large range of printing consumables i.e. ink cartridges, laser toner cartridges, thermal transfer fax rolls etc. It sells mainly to businesses, although it does sell directly to the public at it’s manufacturing plant in Warrenpoint. In 2008 Typerite exports it’s products to 33 countries across the world.

In the 90’s Typerite employed over 100 staff as the work involved in the manufacturing process was manual in nature and very labour intensive. Now due to technological advances in the area they employ 30 members of staff. Members of staff include; Gary Barlow who is the owner and acts as Managing Director, his wife and co-owner Florence Barlow who is Company Secretary, their daughter Cathy Gamble who deals with Sales and Marketing of the company, Fiona Boyle who is Office Manager, Jim Coglan who is Purchasing Manager and Tracey Tsang who is Marketing Executive. The reminder of staff are Production supervisors and Production staff.

For the purpose of this assignment I will examine and evaluate the structure and design of Typerite Ltd.

Typrite as well as any organisation is composed of certain parts or departments i.e. Sales and Marketing Department, Administration Department, Purchasing Department and the Production Department. These groupings can be described as the division of work, according to specialisation, the use of the same set of resources, or the shared expertise of members of staff as described in (Mullins). These parts are interdependent on each other and therefore some sort of co-operation is needed for the organisation to exist and function as a whole. For this there needs to be some sort of deliberate structural system. Structure allows the different functions and processes to be clearly allocated to different departments and employees.

“Structure is the pattern of relationships among positions in the organisations and among members of the organisation. Structure makes possible the application of the process of management and creates a framework of order and command through which the activities of the organisation can be planned, organised, directed and controlled.” (Mullins)

Organisations are structured in a variety of ways, depending on many aspects including their size, objectives, culture and management style. It is important to look at these aspects as these influence the design and the structure of the business. Given that most organisation theory is based on a large company perspective it is somewhat difficult to define aspects of organisation behaviour in the context of a small to medium business. However through my own study of organisational behaviour theory and also through my experience of meeting Cathy Gamble, who gave me detailed insight into the workings and operations of Typerite I will try to define the various aspects of the organisation i.e. Typerite’s culture, management style.

Typerite’s predominant management style is democratic. All employees within the organisation are included in the decision making. Authority is decentralised and decisions arise from consultation and participation between all members of staff, leaders and subordinates. When Typerite is introducing a change a department the managers consult with staff to gain their views, the employees views will be taken into consideration before the change takes place. Within each department the staff are encouraged to make their own decisions when carrying out their daily work and only consult the Managing Director when difficulty arises. However some elements of Typerite’s management style would be Authocratic, e.g. if there was an emergency decision needed to be made, the Managing Director would not have time to consult staff. Also given that he is the owner of the business if he thought that a decision he decided on was best for the business even if it went against the general consensus of the workforce, his decision would be final.

Typerite’s organisation culture is task. Employees are given flexibility because of their expertise in their given roles. The employees at Typerite are encouraged to work in teams to complete the tasks that face them. However there are elements of a Power culture as this is appropriate given the type of organisation. The Managing Director has the overview of the entire company and can take risks where necessary if the business is to grow. Kelliher and Henderson’s study of the small business environment noted several writers comment on the owner's pivotal role in the small organisation (Lles 1994; Markus 1983), wherein the organisational culture can be considered