Tanisha Williams
Complex Organizations
Professor Donna Trent
November 17, 2012
Harvard Case Analysis

The Apex Corporation, though profitable was lousily managed. It lacked structure and would sooner or later lose control of its laxed work force and eventually lose profits. The problems facing Apex lay in several areas. (1) Customer serviced needed much improvement; customers found Apex to be slow in responding or not responding at all. (2) The hours that key employees kept were not in tune with customer needs. (3) Apex functioned as a reactionary company rather than a potential leader in the cellular carrier industry. Some alternative actions Apex Corporation needed were restructuring of its organizational structure, in an attempt to achieve maximum proficiency, the CEO implemented a circular structure to create a non hierarchal organization so information could flow freely between the organization and its environment. However employees could not relate to the circular structure. The circular structure confused current and new employees because it lacked clarity as to who made decisions; employees didn’t know how they were being evaluated. It did not improved customer service or the view employees had of the customer. The Horizontal structure was nonresponsive with regards to employees and it was inadequate.
What was needed was the ability to control all departments of the company. Innovative structures would not work. Apex needed to return to traditional business management of the Hierarchical Functional Structure. Hierarchy protects subordinates by clearly outlining chains of command. What a superior can and cannot do, and where his authority has power is delineated in hierarchical structures. This allows the subordinate some level of power to stop interference by an unauthorized superior. An advantage for subordinates within the