Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

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SpaceX’s Organisational Structure

Since SpaceX is a private company, their proper organisational structure is undisclosed. However, Mintzberg’s theory is a popular framework amongst western society, hence the application of the framework. SpaceX designers and engineers form their own teams to pursue on a particular project 11 . In fact, engineers are provided with the freedom to locomotion, if their expertise can contribute on another project. However, Musk allowing this, can slow down productivity if the employees in the management are constantly shifting around. SpaceX can be placed as a matrix form of structure. The versatility of this structure resembles closely to Henry Mintzberg’s framework of organizational structures.

The Mintzberg framework breaks a business into 5 foundation building blocks

The Strategic Apex – The executives and senior management who makes the key decisions. The Operating Core – This is formulated with workers who carry out the organizations task. The Middle Line – These are the middle tier management such as managers of a franchise. The Technostructure – This mainly includes analysts such as accounts, researchers, engineers and etc. Support Staff – Support staff do not contribute directly to organisations but instead provide indirect services. For example: The support chat team.

Fig. 2 Mintzberg’s Framework Image Source: http://carryingthecross.com/leaders -toolbox-organization-adaptability/

11 Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk , 1st ed. repr., London: Ebury Publishing, 2016.