Where are managers needed? How culture and coordinative complexity predict the evolution of reporting relationships in organizations

Abstract Organization redesign often raises a central question: Where are managers needed? A potential substitute for formal supervision by managers is interpersonal cultural alignment, which can ease coordination between colleagues. Yet prior research suggests cultural alignment may also complement formal structure. We theorize that the balance depends on coordinative complexity: Whether culturally aligned individuals benefit from common supervision hinges on how broadly they depend on others to get work done. Cultural alignment can function as a substitute for formal structure when coordinative complexity is low and as a complement when coordinative complexity is high. Focusing on one of the most tangible and consequential forms of cultural alignment—the degree to which individuals are linguistically aligned with their peers in everyday communications—we make predictions about which pairs of colleagues organizational designers will tend to bring together under, versus separate from, a shared supervisor. Using archival data from a design firm, we find support for our theory, with especially strong effects when colleagues are highly visible to their senior managers.