By Christina Nielsen, Content Marketing Specialist, October 2025
Countless insightful things have been said about organizational design, but few theories have had as much influence as Henry Mintzberg’s. Mintzberg is one of the most recognized names in organizational theory. In his model, he identifies five different organizational structures, each with unique characteristics and advantages depending on the organization’s size, strategy, and environment.
In this article, you can explore Mintzberg’s five organizational structures and learn how they can help you understand and optimize your own organization.
A simple structure is exactly what the name suggests: an organization with a straightforward, flat hierarchy. It’s typically found in small businesses or startups, where decision-making is concentrated in one or a few individuals — often a leader responsible for both strategy and daily operations.
Characteristics of a Simple Structure:
Advantages:
Fast decision-making and high flexibility.
Cost-effective with fewer management layers.
Challenges:
The machine bureaucracy is characterized by standardization and formalized processes. This structure is often found in large organizations such as factories, public institutions, or corporations that require a high degree of consistency and control.
Characteristics of a Machine Bureaucracy:
Advantages:
Challenges:
In contrast to the machine bureaucracy, where control and standardization are central, the professional bureaucracy is characterized by its reliance on highly specialized employees. This type of organization is often found in hospitals, law firms, and universities, where experts have a high degree of autonomy in their work.
Characteristics of a Professional Bureaucracy:
Advantages:
Challenges:
Henry Mintzberg (b. 1939) is a Canadian professor of management and organization and one of the most influential contributors to the way we understand and work with organizational design today.
He is particularly known for his research on how organizations actually function in practice – as opposed to how they are often assumed to function in theory.
It was Mintzberg who developed the theory of the five organizational structures, which describes how organizations structure themselves differently depending on size, strategy, and environment.
His model is widely used today to understand, analyze, and develop organizational structures, and to create stronger alignment between strategy, people, and processes.
The divisionalized organizational structure is common in large organizations operating across multiple geographic regions or market segments. This structure emerges when an organization divides itself into independent divisions, each responsible for specific products, services, or markets. Each division functions almost like a separate company.
Characteristics of the Divisionalized Form:
Advantages:
Challenges:
The adhocratic form is the most flexible of Mintzberg’s organizational structures. It is characterized by a decentralized structure where employees work across functions in project teams with a high degree of freedom and innovation. This form is often found in creative industries such as advertising agencies, tech companies, and consulting firms.
Characteristics of Adhocracy:
Advantages:
Challenges:
No, you don’t just choose a structure — you develop it.
An organization’s structure isn’t created overnight; it evolves over time as a result of the company’s strategy, tasks, culture, and environment.
So, you can’t simply decide: “We’re going to be an adhocracy now.”
However, you — and especially the top management — can steer the development in a specific direction. This can be done by adjusting leadership style, decision-making processes, and collaboration methods so that the organization gradually adapts to the needs and goals it faces.
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We believe that strategy should make sense in everyday work, engage the entire organization, and lead to actions that create real value. At CfL, we can help you with:
As organizations grow, their structure naturally changes.
A small company often begins with a simple structure, where the leader makes most of the decisions. As the business expands, the need for systems, departments, and procedures arises — and the organization moves toward a machine bureaucracy. When it grows even larger and more complex, it typically divides into divisions with their own responsibilities and management.
You can rarely “choose” a structure from scratch; instead, it must be continuously adapted to fit the company’s evolving needs and challenges.
Examples:
A large multinational company that produces standardized products will typically have a machine bureaucratic or divisionalized structure because:
A small, innovative tech startup will often adopt an adhocratic structure to encourage creativity, quick decision-making, and flexibility:
If you’re establishing a new business, it makes sense to design the structure from the beginning — choosing a form that aligns with your strategy and environment, such as an adhocracy for innovation or a bureaucracy for operational stability. But even here, the structure will evolve over time as your company grows and matures.
Mintzberg’s model emphasizes that there is no single “best” organizational structure. The key is to choose the one that best fits the specific needs and challenges your organization faces. For leaders, this means paying attention to how the structure either supports or limits the company’s ability to achieve its goals.
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Mintzberg’s five organizational structures provide a valuable framework for understanding how organizations structure themselves to achieve success.
Whether your organization is small and flexible or large and bureaucratic, the model can help you find the right balance between control, innovation, and adaptability. By understanding the different types, leaders can create a work environment that supports both employee and organizational growth.
Being aware of how the structure supports or hinders the company’s goals isn’t about drawing organizational charts — it’s about understanding the connection between strategy, people, and workflows.
Mintzberg gave us the understanding of what an organizational structure is and how it is shaped. His theory explains how different types of structures emerge as a result of an organization’s strategy, size, culture, and environment. He demonstrated that there is no single correct model — the structure must fit the organization’s context and goals.
Today, the leadership challenge lies in actively working with the structure in practice. Modern leadership approaches, such as CfL’s, build on Mintzberg’s framework but focus on how leaders can continuously adapt the structure to support organizational development.
It’s not about choosing a model on paper, but about asking questions like:
When strategy changes, the structure must evolve with it — otherwise, it risks becoming a barrier to progress rather than a foundation for it.
Mintzberg identified five fundamental ways to structure an organization. Each form has its own coordination mechanism, defining characteristics, and fits different types of businesses and tasks.
The table below provides a quick overview of the five structures and their key characteristics.
|
Organizational Structure |
Coordination Mechanism |
Typical Characteristics |
|
Simple Structure |
Direct Supervision |
Fast, flexible, person-driven |
|
Machine Bureaucracy |
Standardisering af processer |
Efficient, stable, rule-based |
|
Professional Bureaucracy |
Standardization of Skills |
Professional autonomy, expert-driven |
|
Divisionalized Form |
Standardization of results |
|
|
Adhocracy |
Mutual Adjustment |
|
