Introduction

Management of services and manufacturing as well as in government has in the past been largely driven by externally imposed organizational, reporting, and control requirements introduced from the top down and/or external requirements rather than by internal decision needs of the organization so as to efficiently serve its functions and, most importantly, its customers and markets. Most companies today still employ traditional hierarchical line type of organizations based largely on external reporting and not internal control or decision requirements. Many service and manufacturing organizations have in recent years found that efficient, responsive, and quality oriented organizations require a decision-based structure which assures dynamic responsiveness to continuously changing customer or market, economic, regulatory, operating, social, and technological conditions. To be effective this must involve not only top management but everyone in the organization independent of position in both decision making as well as responsibility and control. It must reflect changing customer needs, organizational capability, technological developments, regulatory requirements as well as the needs of the organization.

Decisions are always made best and in the timeliest manner by people actually involved in and/or affected by such a decision. As it is, they usually have all the information needed to make such a decision and can more readily identify the choices and their impacts. Decision making powers should always be lodged with people closest to the decision and its impacts, particularly if it requires or benefits by real time action and actual on-site information. Only long-term decisions, requiring strategic considerations, aggregation of information, manipulation of information, or forecasts of developments should be delegated to managers and others not directly involved in or affected by the decision. Decentralization of decision making is the basis for effective operational management such as required by modern firms and other organizations subject to a continuously changing environment, market, and technology. Today's networking technology provides effective tools for the implementation of such large-scale decision delegation.