Why Meta’s embrace of a ‘flat’ management structure may not lead to the innovation and efficiency Mark Zuckerberg seeks

Big Tech, under pressure from dwindling profits and falling <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/19/why-were-tech-stocks-down-in-2022-and-how-long-will-the-slump-last/?sh=fc815f37f160" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">stock prices</a>, is seeking some of that old startup magic. Meta, the parent of Facebook, recently became the latest of the <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/02/06/middle-managers-tech-layoffs-efficiency-zuckerberg-facebook-google/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">industry’s dominant players</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/technology/meta-layoffs.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">lay off thousands of employees</a>, particularly middle managers, in an effort to return to a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamcraig/2018/10/23/the-nature-of-leadership-in-a-flat-organization/?sh=72c5f6605fe1" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">flatter, more nimble organization</a> — a structure more typical when a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/06/17/how-flat-businesses-can-still-scale-despite-their-structure/?sh=250e81bb4d1c" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">company is very young or very small</a>. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg joins <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-ceo-musk-says-company-is-flattening-management-structure-inreorganization-1526308678" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Elon Musk</a> and other business leaders in betting that eliminating layers of management will boost profits. But is flatter better? Will getting rid of managers improve organizational efficiency and the bottom line? As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=hAchnpgAAAAJ" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">someone who has studied</a> and taught organization theory as well as leadership and organizational behavior for nearly a decade, I think it’s not that simple. <h1>Resilient bureaucracies</h1> Since the 1800s, management scholars have sought to understand how organizational structure influences productivity. Most early scholars focused on bureaucratic models that promised managerial authority, rational decision-making and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2019.0059" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">efficiency, impartiality and fairness</a> toward employees. <a href="https://medium.com/the-conversation/why-metas-embrace-of-a-flat-management-structure-may-not-lead-to-the-innovation-zuckerberg-hopes-35c973a8b189">Read More</a>