CHAIN OF COMMAND/LINE MANAGER
AND FORMAL/INFORMAL GROUPS
By Hannah Williams, Pujah Shan and Ysabelle
Hough
CHAIN
OF COMMAND
Chain of command is the order in which
authority and power in an organisation is
wielded and delegated from top management to
every employee at every level of the organisation.
 It is a typical pyramid shape, at each stage in the
chain, one person has a number of workers
directly under them, within their span of control.
This person is directly responsible for a group of
workers is called their line manager!
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FORMAL/INFORMAL GROUPS
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Formal – Formal groups are created by the organisation
and are intentionally designed to direct members.
Examples of Formal groups:
Board of directors,
Committees,
Departments
(In school) – Teachers planning and setting up a meeting in
the staff room to talk about an important matter
Informal – Informal groups develop naturally amongst
organisations personnel without any direction from the
management
Examples of Informal groups:
(In school) – Teachers just meeting up to discuss something,
not planned
DOES SAINSBURY’S HAVE THESE?
Sainsbury’s does have Formal Groups in their
business, some examples of these are:
 Board of directors meetings,
 Operating board meetings,
 Committees meetings
 Sainsbury’s chain of command, consists of a tall
hierarchical structure because it is a large
business.
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DOES THORPE PARK HAVE THESE?
Thorpe Park does have Formal groups in their
business, some examples of these are:
 Customer service meetings,
 Engineering meetings
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