Meaning & use
horizontal management
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Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
A way of running a company in which people at the same level share decisions instead of following orders from above.
Grammar: Used as an uncountable noun, so it takes a singular verb and no article in general statements: Horizontal management works well in small firms.
Patterns
- horizontal management of something
- a system of horizontal management
- introduce horizontal management
The startup grew quickly because horizontal management let every team member vote on big projects.
Under horizontal management, the marketing and design teams agreed on the launch date together.
Some managers find horizontal management hard because they are used to giving instructions.
noununcountablebusiness
The practice of coordinating work across departments at the same rank rather than up and down a chain of command.
Grammar: Often used after prepositions such as through or by: They solved the delay through horizontal management.
Patterns
- through horizontal management
- rely on horizontal management
- a form of horizontal management
The two departments avoided a conflict through horizontal management rather than asking a director to decide.
Her article argues that horizontal management is more common in creative industries than in factories.
Common combinations
- a system of horizontal management
- The company introduced a system of horizontal management after the merger.
- horizontal management structure
- A horizontal management structure can slow decisions when many people must agree.
- introduce horizontal management
- The new chief executive wanted to introduce horizontal management across all offices.
- horizontal management style
- His horizontal management style means he asks the team before making changes.
- under horizontal management
- Under horizontal management, junior staff often speak at meetings more freely.
Synonyms and how they differ
- flat management
- Very close in meaning, but it stresses that there are few levels of bosses, while horizontal management stresses that decisions are shared sideways.
- participative management
- This focuses on workers taking part in decisions; horizontal management focuses on the direction decisions travel inside the company.
- decentralized management
- This means power is spread to local units, which is not the same as sharing power among people at one level.
Opposites
Word family
- horizontal adjective
- Flat or side-to-side; in business, describing relationships between people at the same level.
- horizontally adverb
- In a side-to-side direction, or across the same level of an organization.
- manage verb
- To be in charge of people or work and make decisions about them.
- manager noun
- A person whose job is to control or organize part of a company.
- managerial adjective
- Relating to the work of managing or to managers.
Commonly confused: horizontal management or vertical management? horizontal management or matrix management?
horizontal management vs vertical management
This is the opposite: decisions come down from senior managers and orders travel upward through the chain of command.
horizontal management vs matrix management
In matrix management, staff report to two bosses at once, such as a project leader and a department head; it is not the same as sharing decisions at one level.
Practice
Which sentence uses "horizontal management" in the most natural way?
Choose one answer.
Horizontal management is about sharing decisions among people at the same level, so option A fits. Option C confuses the business term with the everyday meaning of "horizontal" as a physical direction, and the other options describe promotion or job cuts, which the term does not mean.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “horizontal management”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.