Line and Staff Organisation
The line and staff organisation is a combination of the two. It has the line organisation but the line executives are supported by experts and specialists in different fields. These experts are referred to as staff and are intended to render guidance, opinion and expert advice to the line executives to help them take decisions. The staff’ authorities or the staff officers do not have control on the workers and do not pass orders to them. They are to give their opinion only to the line executives who are free to accept or reject it. Thus, according to the commonly accepted meaning of line and staff organisation, the line executives are those who have direct responsibility of the functioning of the enterprise or achievement of the objectives and orders and instructions to the subordinate personnel. According to this line of thinking, production, finance and sales are often classified as the line functions, others like accounting, personnel and plant maintenance as staff departments.