Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Engelke, C.

Titel

THE IMPACT OF SERVICE VARIETY ON ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE IN A HETEROGENEOUS SECTOR: A REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF GERMAN RETAIL HORTICULTURE

Ist Teil von

• Russian journal of agricultural and socio-economic sciences, 2017-06, Vol.66 (6), p.5-22

Ort / Verlag

iVolga Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Freely accessible e-journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Structural change towards services becomes exigent when the sales do not meet operational direction anymore. Thus, the a priori strong heterogeneity in German retail horticulture (GRH) requires knowledge in the interaction of relevant internal parameters to find the best individual combination. On this account, the present paper has two goals: First, to systematise relevant, internal characteristics (contingency), considering previous research, by running a confirmatory factor analysis. Second, we investigate the impact of the service variety on the organizational structure and economic parameters, in order to find the right combination for GRH by running regression analysis. Based on a previous exploratory study, 283 retail nurseries were asked questions in an online survey and their answers were interpreted in a quantitative way. Part 1: We gave proof that relevant situational characteristics on GRH include size, level of controlling, experience and service variety as internal factor variables, showing high eigenvalues. Part 2: We found causal relationships between the service variety and the number of hierarchy, span of control and hierarchy configuration (H1). The size is also of significant importance but on a minor level. Size faces positive correlation on delegation (H2), and the size and the level of controlling also have adequate impact on the sales volume. Meanwhile the configuration variables have no impact on the sales volume. This means that sales volume is related to the size and the level of controlling but independent of the configuration. Accordingly, there is no coordinated interaction of contingency, structure and delegation variables with impact on the sales volumes (H3). Structural delegations on sales volume are significantly acquisition/ marketing and planning as operational performance-variables, which are mostly done by the owner/CEO himself. These tasks show negative coefficients, which lead to the proposal that with growing sales, the level of delegation has to be improved and these tasks must be transferred to employees. On this account, central structures focussing on performances, not products, and a low level of departmentalization together make up the ideal organizational structure for GRH.