Which structure has operating core as dominant?

• A. Professional Bureaucracy
• B. Simple Structure
• C. Machine Bureaucracy
• D. Adhocracy

Answer: (A)

The main idea is about what drives the organization: the people who actually do the work. In a professional bureaucracy, the core workers are highly skilled professionals (like doctors, lawyers, engineers) who apply their expertise to deliver the organization’s key services. Their professional judgment and autonomy are central to how the organization operates, so the operating core effectively anchors and dominates the structure. The rest of the design—support staff, managers, and standard processes—exists to enable those professionals to work efficiently, not to control them.

In other structures the focus isn’t on the core workers. A machine bureaucracy relies on formal rules and a technostructure to standardize and control work, so the core isn’t the dominant element. An adhocracy emphasizes flexible, project-based teams and mutual adjustment rather than a stable, dominant operating core. A simple structure centers decision-making in a single leader or small leadership group, so the strategic apex leads rather than the core workers.