Graicunas linked the principle of span of control to the concept of span of attention.
He revealed that as the number of subordinates reporting directly to a manager increases arithmetically, the number of potential relationships within the manager’s work group increases geometrically. This is because supervision involves not only individual subordinates but also the various combinations of their interactions.
- Number of Direct Single Relations: n
- Number of Direct Group Relations:
- n(2n/2 -1)
- Number of Cross Relations:Â n(n-1)
The total number of all the relationships ⇒ direct single + direct group + crosses .
Total Number of Relations: Â Â
where n = number of subordinates.
For n = 5 (number of subordinates)
So, when there are 5 subordinates, the total number of relationships according to Graicunas’ formula is 100.
