Assertion (A): In the organizational structure of the modern companies, the trend is towards wider span of control.

Reason (R): Narrow span of control discourages autonomy. 

Solution

• Span of control or span of management is a dimension of organizational design measured by the number of subordinates that report directly to a given manager. • This concept affects organization design in a variety of ways, including speed of communication flow, employee motivation, reporting relationships, and administrative overhead. Span of management has been part of the historical discussion regarding the most appropriate design and structure of organizations. • A small, or narrow, span of control results in each manager supervising a small number of employees, while a wide span of management occurs when more subordinates report directly to a given manager. • A small span of management would make it necessary to have more managers and more layers of management to oversee the same number of operative employees than would be necessary for an organization using a wider span of management. The narrower span of management would result in more layers of management and slower communications between lower- level employees and top level managers of the firm. Recent moves to downsize organizations and to eliminate unnecessary positions has resulted in many organizations moving to wider spans of management and the elimination of layers of middle-level managers. • The trend in recent years has been to move toward wider spans of control to reduce costs, speed decision making, increase flexibility and empower employees. Therefore, assertion is correct. • A narrow span of control also discourages autonomy among employees since every employee is closely guided by a supervisor since every supervisor has very few subordinates to supervise. Therefore, reason is also correct. • Hence the correct answer will be option A.