Influence of the type of technology on the organization design

Summary form only given. This paper presents one part of the investigations undertaken by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Skopje related to the organization design of Macedonian enterprises. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the relationships between the type of technology used and several contingency factors that are crucial for organizational design. 25 enterprises have been examined (12 enterprises were manufacturing companies, 5 companies were in service business, and the rest (8 enterprises) were involved in both: production and service). In their investigations´ the authors recognized four types of technology: units, serial (batch), mass and process technology. These types of technology were related to the different kinds of organizational structure (functional, divisional, and combination of them). Most companies have functional structure (16 of them). Also, as a characteristic of the enterprises authors examined the size of organizations, “age” of the enterprise, and number of qualified employees. It is concluded that managerial pyramids in Macedonian enterprises are taller than in similar companies in developed countries. Trends in developed countries for flattening the organizations´ pyramids and increasing the span of management should be considered for Macedonian enterprises, as a possibility to address the problem of span of management