Vertical organizations

Vertical organizations are traditional organizational hierarchies. Most companies choose this form of organization. Bureaucracies are typical vertical structures, also called tall organizations. In vertical organizations, silos of information often develop. It is difficult to encourage communication among these areas. Traditionally the FBI, CIA, INS, and Border Patrol have been information silos – rarely sharing relevant information among departments. President Bush created the Homeland Security Agency to give these departments a common parent in hopes of facilitating communication between them. It is too early to evaluate whether this action will produce desired results or only create a larger bureaucracy. Grouping in a vertical organization is organized by logical groups and subsets of those groups. This is also called departmentalization. There are four common types of departmentalization: function, division, matrix, and network.