Relationship between Strategy and Organizational Structure: A Comparative Study between Public and Private Hospitals of Tehran 2012

Background: Strategy is one of the important factors affecting the organizational structure. Taking the relationship between these two mentioned factors into consideration is essential. This study surveys the relationship between organizational structure and strategies of public and private hospitals in Tehran.Materials & Methods: This study is a descriptive and analytical study of 20 selected public and private hospitals conducted in Tehran in the year 2012. The statistical population included supreme hospitals managers .We did a complete count because the sample size was small(60 managers). Research instrument was Miles and Snow strategy and Robbins's organizational structure questionnaire. A panel of experts were used for validity of questionnaires while the estimation of their reliability was calculated by Cronbach`s Alpha which was 0.75. The data analysis was conducted with descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation test.Results: Among the structural dimensions, “centralization” was between was 85% and 75%, “formality” was 92% and 88% and “complexity” was 81% and 100% public and private hospitals respectively. Dominant strategy for both groups of hospitals was analytic. Correlation coefficient between strategy and organizational structure in public hospitals was -0.2 and in private hospitals was +0.3 which showed that relationship was not significant.Conclusion: There was not a significant relationship between dimensions of organizational structure and the dominant strategy (analytical strategy) in public and private hospitals. If these hospitals tend to follow analytical strategies, they should reduce their complexity. Moreover, centralization could be towards analytical strategies if there is a strict control on current activities and little on new ones