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The span of control some times referred to as the span of management is the number of subordinates a manager supervises or is in control of. the span of control can be either wide or narrow. a span of control is said to be wide when one manager is in charge of a large number of people, however if he is in charge of a little number of people, the span of control is said to be narrow.
the span or control can be affected by a various number of factors. these include: the complexity of the work, the self discipline of the workers, methods of communication, frequency of supervision, and the capability of the manager.
if the work is to complex one manger would not be able to supervise all of the workers in timely manner. this would lead to the narrowing of the span of control. if, however he is able to cope the span of control may remain as is or may widen.
if workers are diciplined enough they can be left on their own to do their work, leading to less supervision. if employees are umdiciplined they may need greater supervision and thus a larger number of people may be employeed to meet the supervisory needs of the firm.
if managers are frequently asked to supervise every one of his subordinates in a limited amount of time the manager may become over worked resulting in reduced productivity of the business. the span of control may be narrowed to prevent this from happening.
managers are respondisible for their workers and if they are caple of controling and motivating a large number of them the span of control may be very wide.
a wide span of control may employ less numbers of workers whilst a narrow span of control results in more people being eployed to supervise. this can impact the business in terms of profit making.