Explain the concept of Line and staff structure. What are its advantages and disadvantages?

The line and staff organization combines the line organization with staff departments that support and advise line department. In each department, there is one expert and some line personnel’s / line officials. Line official will do all managerial work and expert will give advice to line official or line personnel.

 Line and staff organization is that in which the line heads are assisted by specialist staff. The line maintains discipline and stability, staff provides experts information and helps to improve overall efficiency. Thus the staff are thinkers while the line are doers.

 Advantages

1. Planned Specialization: The line and staff is a duplex organization, dividing the whole work into creative plan and action plan. The creative plan is concerned with original thinking and the action plan takes care of the execution of work.

2. Availability of specialized knowledge: The staff with expert knowledge provides opportunities to the line officers

for adopting rational multidimensional views towards a problem. Therefore it helps to take sound decisions.

 3. Adaptability to progressive business. This type of organization contains good features of both line as well as functional organization. Specialized staff can devoted their time for planning, method study research, collection of data etc.,

4. Less wastage & Improved Quality.

Disadvantages

1. Chances of Misinterpretation : Although the expert’s advice is available, yet it reaches the workers through line supervisors. The line officers may fail to understand the meaning of advice and there is always a risk of misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

2. Expensive : The overhead cost of the product increases because of high salaried specialized staff.

3. Loss of initiative by line executives : If is they start depending too much on staff may lose their initiative drive and ingenuity.