Explain the principle of ‘Scalar chain’ and gang plank.
Scalar chain refers to the line of authority for the chain of superior ranking from the highest to the lowest. Fayol had insisted upon using this chain in every organisation. Every information must pass through every level without skipping any one of them.
According to Fayol, “Organisations should have a chain of
authority and communication
that runs from top to bottom and
should be followed by managers
and the subordinates.”
Let us consider a situation where
there is one head ‘A’ who has
two lines of authority under her/
him. One line consists of B-CD-E-F. Another line of authority
under ‘A’ is L-M-N-O-P. If ‘E’ has
to communicate with ‘O’ who is
at the same level of authority
then she/he has to traverse the
route E-D-C-B-A-L-M-N-O. This
is due to the principle of scalar chain being followed in this
situation. According to Fayol,
this chain should not be violated
in the normal course of formal
communication. However, if there
is an emergency then ‘E’ can
directly contact ‘O’ through ‘Gang
Plank’ as shown in the diagram.
This is a shorter route and
has been provided so that
communication is not delayed.
In practice you find that a worker
cannot directly contact the CEO
of the company. If at all she/he
has to, then all the formal levels
i.e., foreman, superintendent,
manager, director etc have
to know about the matter.
However, in an emergency it can
be possible that a worker can
contact CEO directly.
In short Gang Plank means that at times it may cause a lot of delay in passing out of information, which will eventually led to delay in decision making. To resolve this issue, Fayol has suggested a gang plank, which is a short cut chain, in which D can directly contact G
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