The new hierarchy

Abstract

It is indisputable that organizational change involving the removal of managers and managerial layers has created positive results in a number of companies. But whether this is to be seen as a panacea remains a quite different and open issue. It is highly debatable whether there is any truth in the statement that hierarchies in companies are being phased out as a consequence of recent developments. On the contrary, a number of surveys show that hierarchies remain intact in the majority of companies. This is also true of change-oriented units.
The aim of this article is to consider the paradox that hierarchies remain also in organisations that focus on decentralisation of responsibilities and decision-making competencies. And as a further illustration of this paradox, hierarchies remain in spite of a massive and consistent discourse on exactly the opposite: those organisations are getting flatter.
This article provides a number of explanations for the continuing presence of hierarchical structures, also in change-oriented companies. In continuation of this discussion, I intend to point to a number of problems that may be traced to the fact that large parts of the literature on management and organisations promote the notion that hierarchies are being dismantled – in contradiction to the experiences of employees in the overwhelming majority of companies.