Control loss and Fayol's gangplanks

Abstract Williamson’s (1971) model of control loss in organizational hierarchies describes the cumulative decay of influence of superiors over subordinates who are separated by a number of hierarchical levels in the chain-of-command. This paper shows that control loss may be deduced from a network theory of social influence, and it shows that ties among actors at the same hierarchical level—Fayol’s gangplanks—may constrain control loss in organizational hierarchies. The structural mitigation of control loss by Fayol’s gangplanks increases with superiors’ span of control and depends on their capacity to maintain influence upon immediate subordinates in the presence of the lateral influences among subordinates.

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