LEAD 6323 Module 3 Structure, Power and Decision-Making Analysis Example

Three Signatures for a Spreadsheet: Structure, Bases of Power and Where Decisions Sit in a State Public Health Laboratory

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6323: Organizational Behavior and Culture

Module 3 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 26, 2026

Introduction

Two earlier papers tied the laboratory's turnover to a culture of control and to jobs that leave the sequencing scientists little say over their own work. Both findings point to structure: who decides what, and how decisions travel. This paper analyzes the laboratory's structure with a classic typology, maps the bases of power held by different groups, traces one decision through the system and recommends where decisions should sit.

The Laboratory's Configuration

Mintzberg (1979) described organizations by how they coordinate work and which part of the organization holds the most influence, and identified several configurations, among them the machine bureaucracy, coordinated by standardized work processes and controlled by analysts and managers, and the professional bureaucracy, coordinated by the standardized skills of trained professionals who keep considerable control over their own work. A public health laboratory ought, by its work, to resemble a professional bureaucracy: its scientists are highly trained and much of their work depends on expert judgment. In practice, our laboratory runs largely as a machine bureaucracy. Coordination relies on detailed procedures and sign-off chains, the quality assurance office and section supervisors control method changes and bench scientists' expertise has little formal standing in decisions.

Bases of Power

French and Raven (1959) identified five sources from which influence can flow: an office others accept as entitled to direct them, the ability to hand out benefits, the ability to impose penalties, superior knowledge, and the admiration that makes others want to follow. Mapping the laboratory by these bases is revealing. Section supervisors and the quality assurance manager hold legitimate, reward and coercive power: they approve changes, assign work and initiate corrective actions. Sequencing scientists hold expert power, often more than their supervisors in genomic methods, but almost no legitimate power. Long-serving microbiologists hold referent power within their sections. Decisions sit with legitimate power while the expertise they depend on sits elsewhere, and the gap between the two is where weeks disappear.

Tracing One Decision

In March, a sequencing scientist proposed changing the worksheet used to track library preparation, adding columns that would catch a recurring labeling error. The change did not affect any validated reporting method. The proposal went to her supervisor, who forwarded it to the section manager, who sent it to quality assurance for review against document control rules. Quality assurance returned it for formatting corrections twice. The revised worksheet then waited for the laboratory director's signature, required for any controlled document, through two weeks when the director was in budget hearings. The change took effect after eleven weeks. During that time the labeling error recurred twice, each requiring a corrective action. No one in the chain acted carelessly; each step followed the rules, which is exactly why the case shows the structure rather than any person as the problem.

The Informal Structure

Alongside the formal chart runs an informal structure that explains how work actually gets done. When a method problem is urgent, scientists bypass the approval chain by asking a respected senior microbiologist, who holds referent power, to call the quality assurance manager directly; changes approved this way move in days. The sequencing scientists, new to the building and outside these relationships, have no such route. The informal structure therefore magnifies the formal one's unevenness: staff with long tenure and social ties can get decisions made, while newer experts cannot. Any redesign that changes only the formal rules may leave this pattern in place, which is why the recommendations below include a regular meeting where proposals from any scientist are heard in the same forum.

Why Centralization Matters Here

The case is small but typical, and research suggests its costs. Damanpour (1991), pooling decades of innovation studies, found that organizations which concentrate decisions at the top innovate less, while those with many specialists and highly trained staff innovate more. The laboratory has high specialization and professionalism, conditions that favor innovation, and high centralization, which works against it. The frustration the sequencing scientists voiced in Module 2, about genomes taking a day and spreadsheets a season, is what that combination feels like from the bench.

What Centralization Protects

Centralization is not irrational. Federal laboratory standards require document control, and the laboratory's quality record, with no certification deficiencies in a decade, owes much to careful review. Quality assurance staff point out that small undocumented changes caused a reporting error at another state's laboratory a few years ago. Any redesign must keep control where errors could reach a reported result. Supervisors also value the approval chain as a way to stay informed about their sections, a need any redesign should meet through notification rather than permission.

Where Decisions Should Sit

The analysis suggests matching decision rights to risk and expertise. Changes to validated methods and anything that affects reported results stay with quality assurance and the director, as now. Changes to internal tools, worksheets and development workflows move to the unit lead, with quality assurance notified and able to audit, which follows the logic of a professional bureaucracy where trained experts control their own work within standards. The director's signature authority for controlled documents of the second kind will be delegated to the deputy director, reducing the bottleneck during the director's absences. And a monthly change review meeting, including bench scientists, will replace serial forwarding of proposals.

Decision Rights at a Glance

Summarized, the proposal sorts decisions into three groups. Reported-result decisions, including new or changed validated methods, reference ranges and reporting templates, remain with quality assurance and the director. Internal process decisions, including worksheets, internal tracking tools and development workflows, move to unit leads with quality assurance notification and audit. Scheduling and assignment decisions within a section move from section managers to unit leads, who know daily workloads best. Each group has a named decision maker and a maximum review time: thirty days, five days and same week, respectively.

Effects on Power

These changes shift some legitimate power toward the people who hold expert power, which will be welcomed by sequencing scientists and resisted by some supervisors and quality assurance staff who see their role diminished. The resistance deserves respect rather than dismissal: quality assurance's coercive and legitimate power exists to protect the public. Framing the change as a way for quality assurance to concentrate its attention on high-risk changes, rather than as a loss of authority, may make it acceptable.

Conclusion

The laboratory is structured as a machine bureaucracy for work that calls for a professional bureaucracy, with decisions held by legitimate power and expertise held elsewhere. Tracing one worksheet change showed the cost in weeks and repeated errors, and research on innovation explains why centralization in a professional workforce produces it. Matching decision rights to risk keeps the controls that protect results while returning to experts the decisions that their expertise should govern. The test will come in the first quarter after the change: how many internal process changes are made within five days, and whether proficiency testing and corrective action numbers hold steady while they are.

References

Damanpour, F. (1991). Organizational innovation: A meta-analysis of effects of determinants and moderators. Academy of Management Journal, 34(3), 555-590. https://doi.org/10.2307/256406

French, J. R. P., Jr., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150-167). University of Michigan.

Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations. Prentice-Hall.