In modern management thinking, “the flatter the organisation the better”. According to this adage, organisations with very few levels of hierarchy and little in the way of middle management have all the virtues.

Compared with older structures, they are supposed to be less bureaucratic and more flexible, less authoritarian and more democratic, more innovative and less bound by rules and traditions, better at internal communication and better at responding to customer needs and allowing employees to work to their potential and achieve job satisfaction.