Which of the following is NOT a common type of departmentalization?

Which of the following is NOT a common type of departmentalization?

• A. Functional
• B. Product/Service
• C. Customer
• D. Centralized control across units

Answer: (D)

Departmentalization is about how tasks and roles are grouped into units to specialize work and coordinate activities. The main ways this grouping is done include by function (specialists in the same job family), by product or service (units focused on each product line), and by customer (units serving different customer types). What’s different about centralized control across units is that it describes who makes decisions and how authority is shared, not how work is grouped. You can have centralized control whether a company is organized functionally, by product, or by customers—the structure might still group people by function or product, but the decision-making authority sits at the top. So centralized control is about governance and power distribution, not the way departments are formed.

Departmentalization is about how tasks and roles are grouped into units to specialize work and coordinate activities. The main ways this grouping is done include by function (specialists in the same job family), by product or service (units focused on each product line), and by customer (units serving different customer types).

What’s different about centralized control across units is that it describes who makes decisions and how authority is shared, not how work is grouped. You can have centralized control whether a company is organized functionally, by product, or by customers—the structure might still group people by function or product, but the decision-making authority sits at the top. So centralized control is about governance and power distribution, not the way departments are formed.