Determinants of Organisational Structures: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This article analyses the main factors that determine the organisational structure of a sample of firms located in Catalonia, an autonomous region in the northeast of Spain. The variables studied were identified from among the factors considered in contingency theory and by incorporating elements of the strategic choice approach. After grouping the variables into two factors (related to internationalisation and customer-oriented aspects, respectively) the results revealed three groups of companies according to how they regarded the impact of these factors on organisational structures. In those groups that consider the variables of internationalisation to be modifiers of structure the organisational structures are of the 'complex classical' type, whereas simple forms predominate in the group that believes these variables do not modify their structure.

Keywords

• organisational design
• contingency
• strategic choice