DESIGN OF AN ATOMIZED ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE - A GRAPH-THEORETIC APPROACH

Organizations that are divided into a certain number of groups are said to have an atomized structure. Group approach to organization is recently gaining popularity. There are a number of techniques that can be used to study and develop mathematical models of group functioning. This technique originates from what is called cybernetic design of organization and they are based on the systems approach, mathematical modelling and simulation. The tools developed so far, however, are applied to the groups that have already been defined as parts of a larger organization. What is still needed is a technique upon which the decision concerning creation of groups may be based. The intent of this paper is to propose a graph-based approach for atomized organization structure development. The depth-first search algorithm versus matrix based technique is discussed. It is shown that the group retrieval process may be carried out using easily programmable operations on an adjacency matrix.