Different missions linked with different structures, yet similar hierarchies: Factors Differentiating U.S. Agency Organizational Structures from 2004-2021

Organizational structure matters in all organizations, but we have little empirical understanding of how organizational mission relates to structure, how structure varies among organizations, and which structural factors are important to measure to answer these questions. To address this gap, we assembled a rich dataset including 1) Fedscope workforce data for 83 federal agency organizational structures from 2004 to 2021; 2) agency mission statements categorized as either regulatory, distributive, redistributive, foreign/defense, or staff agency types of policy power; 3) counts of federal rules applying to each agency. We then aggregated our dataset to create per-agency measures of six dimensions of organizational structure: spatial centralization, distinct occupations, formal rules, management levels, and upper and middle management spans of control. This enabled us to test whether measures of agency organizational structure were related to agency mission types. Random forest and agglomerative hierarchical cluster analyses revealed that organizational structure relates strongly to mission types, and variable importance measures showed that the most important differentiating factors are spatial centralization, distinct occupations, and rule count. Management spans of control and levels of management—traditional measures of organizational hierarchy—demonstrate low importance for differentiating types of agency. However, the typology ignores that agencies with high numbers of regional or local offices or centers do have taller and broader hierarchies. While this study was limited to US federal agencies, these measures of organizational structure could be used for any type of organization, and hold promise as a tool for developing a broader understanding of how and why organizational structures vary.