A General Guide to Matrix Management
| Published date | 01 February 1975 |
| Date | 01 February 1975 |
| Pages | 33-39 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055282 |
| Author | W.D. Hendry |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
A General Guide to Matrix
Management
W D Hendry
Technical
Editor, Safety in Mines Research Establishment.
Abstracta
Matrix management is a type of organizational structure
that has been evolved in recent years. This paper describes
the characteristic features of this type of organization, and
examines some of the management problems that have
arisen in its application.
Introduction
The notions of matrix organization and matrix management
first became prominent in the American aerospace industry,
among firms that were occupied on Government projects
involving very advanced technology[1]. Such firms had
previously been organized into functional divisions, each
containing its own hierarchical structure. It was found,
however, that this structure was not adequate to cope with
the demands that were imposed on the firms by the
projects with which they were concerned. The solution
adopted by certain companies was to supplement the
original functional structure by appointing project
managers with the responsibility for the progress of each
major project with which the company was concerned.
When this arrangement is depicted in the form of a
company organization chart, it presents the appearance
shown in Figure 1. Here S1 is a specialist in the function of
his division (research) who is assigned to work on Project A,
and so on. 'Functional managers retain their direct line
authority over personnel decisions. The project manager
determines the schedules of the project's activities; the
functional manager determines how support will be
given'[2].
The vertical lines of functional authority do not
necessarily imply subordination, as is conventional with the
traditional organization chart. For example, S7 does not
report to S4, nor does S4 report to S1; all three, however,
report to the manager of the Research Division.
The pattern of organization shown in Figure 1 can be
applied to an organization as a whole, or to a small part of
it. For example, S1 may be a line manager in the research
division, managing a staff of 50 scientists (not shown in
Figure 1) and S2 and S3 may be his counterparts in the
Development and Production Divisions. At another level of
aThis paper is contributed by
permission
of the
Director
of
Research
and
Laboratory Services and Head
of
SMRE,
Health and
Safety
Executive.
©
Crown copyright
1975.
organization, S1 may be an individual research scientist,
with only a few ancillary
staff,
working with S2, a develop-
ment engineer, and S3, the manager of
a
small pilot plant in
the production division.
A rectangular arrangement of symbols, such as the arrange-
ment of S's in Figure 1, is known as a matrix, and the term
'matrix organization' is therefore used for this type of
organization. Its essential features are as follows:
1 There is dual authority: each individual (S) within the
matrix reports to two different managers (M), and each
divisional manager shares the responsibility for super-
vising the work of his staff with the relevant project
manager.
2 A team of specialists from different functional divisions
is formed to work in cooperation on a single project.
These statements can be regarded as defining 'matrix
organization' for the purposes of this paper. In this defi-
nition, the term 'functional' can have a very wide range of
applications, and it is better to give examples than to
attempt a rigorous definition. The functional divisions of an
engineering firm might be research, development, pro-
duction and marketing. The functional divisions of a re-
search establishment might be physics, chemistry, metal-
lurgy, and computer science. The functional divisions of a
building company might be finance, land purchase, con-
struction and marketing. In fact, the notion of
a
functional
division, like the notion of a set in mathematics, is ulti-
mately an intuitive one. The term 'project', following
Steiner and Ryan[3], can be defined as 'a temporary
problem that is complex enough to require special treat-
ment and that is urgent, important and infrequent'.
The preceding definition of matrix organization is intended
to eliminate some of the confusion that can be created
when one consults different discussions of 'matrix organi-
zation', 'matrix management', 'matrix structures', etc, in the
literature on management theory. Some writers identify
matrix organization simply with dual authority; for ex-
ample, in some of the 'matrix structures' described by
Ludwig[4] there is nothing that can be described as a
project team, and the problem of maintaining smooth
cooperation between functional specialists can hardly be
said to arise. Other writers on 'matrix organization', for
example Kingdon[5] are concerned exclusively with the
To continue reading
Request your trial