公司发展阶段The stages of corporate development

公司发展阶段The stages of corporate development

Successful corporations tend to follow a pattern of structural development, called stages of development发展阶段, as they grow and expand. 随着公司的成长和扩张，成功的公司倾向于遵循一种组织结构发展模式，即所谓的发展阶段。

Beginning with the simple structure of the entrepreneurial firm (in which everybody does everything), they usually (if they are successful) get larger and organize along functional lines with marketing, production, and finance departments. With continuing success, the company adds new product lines in different industries and organizes itself into interconnected divisions. The differences among these 3 stages of corporate development in terms of typical problems, objectives, strategies, reward systems, and other characteristics are specified in below.

STAGE 1: SIMPLE STRUCTURE

Stage I is completely centralized in the entrepreneur, who founds the company to promote an idea (product or service). The entrepreneur tends to make all the important decisions personally and is involved in every detail and phase of the organization.

The stage I company has little formal structure, which allows the entrepreneur to directly supervise the activities of very employee. Planning is usually short-range or reactive. The typical managerial functions of planning, organizing, directing, staffing, and controlling are usually performed to a very limited degree, if at all.

The greatest strengths of Stage I corporation are its flexibility and dynamism处于第一阶段的公司的最大优点是它的灵活性和活力。The drive of the entrepreneur energizes the organization in its struggle for growth. Its greatest weakness is its extreme reliance on the entrepreneur to decide general strategies as well as detailed procedures. If the entrepreneur falters, the company usually flounders如果企业家犹豫不决，整个公司就会陷入困境. This is labeled by Greiner as a crisis of leadership. 格雷纳称之为领导危机。

Structured query language = SQL

Stage I describes Oracle Corporation.

STAGE 2: FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE

Stage II is the point when the entrepreneur is replaced by a team of managers who have functional specializations第二阶段发生企业家被具有专业技能的职能管理团队取代时。The transition to this stage requires a substantial managerial style change for the chief officer of the company, especially if he was the Stage I entrepreneur. Otherwise, having

additional staff members yields no benefits to the organization.

Once into Stage II, the corporate strategy favors protectionism through dominance of the industry, often through vertical or horizontal integration.

The greatest strength of a Stage II corporation lies in its concentration and specialization in one industry. Its great weakness is that of its eggs are in one basket.最大弱点是鸡蛋放在一个篮子里。

By concentrating on one industry while that industry remains attractive, a Stage II company can be very successful. Once a functionally structured firm diversifies into other products in different industries, however, the advantages of the functional structure break down.

A crisis of autonomy 自主危机can now develop, in which people managing diversified product lines need more decision-making freedom than top management is willing to delegate to them. The company needs to move to a different structure.

STAGE 3: DIVISIONAL STRUCTURE

Stage III is typified by the corporation’s managing diverse product lines in numerous industries; it decentralizes the decision-making authority. These organization grow by diversifying their product lines and expanding to cover wider geographic areas第三阶段出现在要管理多个产业的多种产品线的公司。公司的决策自主权分散了。这些公司通过生产线的多样化和地域扩张来实现成长。

They move to divisional structure with a central headquarters and decentralized operating divisions; each division or business unit is a functionally organized Stage II company. They may also use a conglomerate structure if top management chooses to keep its collection stage II subsidiaries operating autonomously.

A crisis of control can now develop in which the various units act to optimize their own sales and profits without regard to the overall corporation, whose headquarters seems so far away and almost irrelevant. The same is true when divisions are converted into

strategic business units (SBU).

Headquarters attempt to coordinate the activities of its operating divisions through performance- and results-oriented control and reporting systems, and by stressing corporate planning techniques. The divisions are not tightly controlled but are held responsible fo r their own performance results. Therefore, to be effective, the company has to have a decentralized decision process.

The greatest strength of a Stage III corporation is its almost unlimited resources. Its most significant weakness is that it is usually so large and complex that it tends to become relatively inflexibl e最大缺点是公司太大、太复杂，以致于缺乏灵活性。

STAGE 4: BEYOND SBUS

Stage IV is emerging as a structure that goes beyond the divisional form第四阶段是分部式结构的一种扩展。

The use of divisions and SBUs may result in a red tape crisis官僚主义危机in which the corporation has grown too large and complex to be managed through formal programs and rigid systems and procedures take precedence over problem solving分部式结构和策略事业单位的应用可能来源于官僚主义危机。在该危机中，公司增长的过大、过于复杂而不能通过正式规划、严格系统和解决问题时优先采用程序来管理。

The matrix and the network are two possible candidates for a fourth stage in corporate development; a stage that not only emphasizes horizontal over vertical connections between people and groups, but also organizes work around temporary projects in which sophisticated information systems support collaborative activities.

According to Greiner, it is likely that this stage of development will have its own crisis as well, a sort of pressure-cooker crisis. He predicts that employees in these collaborative organizations will eventually grow emotionally and physically exhausted from the intensity of teamwork and the heavy pressure for innovative solutions.

The blocks to changing stages

Corporations often experience difficulty because they are blocked from moving into

the next logical stage of development.

Blocks to development may be internal, such as lack of resource, lack of ability, or a refusal of top management to delegate decision making to others, or they may be external, such as economic conditions, labor shortages, and lack of market growth.