... entities Bertelsmann had been split into were not adding value to the organisation as a whole. Decentralisation often eases the workload of top managers, allowing them to concentrate on strategic issues. The resulting empowerment of employees increases their level of discretion when making decisions (Coulter & Robbins, 2005 p.240), and motivates them. Measuring performance is made easier by the use of profit centres for assessing both individual managers and team performance. Problems with decentralisation include difficulty in coordinating group activities when communication channels are obscured. The resulting task duplication causes inefficient use of resources (Kidd, 1997), and a lack of synergy caused by decentralisation can result in diseconomies of scale, reducing a firm's ability to compete. Decentralisation often results in a loss of expertise from top management, as they have more experience and a broader perspective of the company. Owing to the size of Bertelsmann if reforms are going to be implemented, ...

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