<P> Organizations begin as line - only, with line manager having direct control over all activities, including administrative ones . Only later, as organizations grow in size, do they add staff positions . </P> <P> Line managers have total authority over those who report directly to them, but staff workers have primarily advisory authority . Their function is to create, develop, collect and analyze shop information, which flows to line workers in the form of advice . </P> <P> Staff positions can have four kinds of authority: "advise authority," with line managers choosing whether or not to seek advice from the staff person, and deciding what to do with the advice once they get it; "compulsory advice" or "compulsory consultation" in which line managers must consider the staff person's advice, but can choose not to heed it; "concurrent authority," in which the line manager cannot finalize a decision without the agreement of the staff person, and "functional authority" in which the staff person has complete formal authority over his or her area of specialty . Management theorists advise that functional authority for staff positions should be extremely limited in scope: it should cover only a tiny aspect of the line managers' job, it should relate only to areas in which line managers have no expertise, and it should be granted only where company - wide uniformity is required . Common types of functional authority for staff positions include authority over recruiting standards, reimbursement policies and quality standards . </P> <P> Staff workers derive influence from expert authority or "authority of knowledge," from their control of information which may be vital to line managers, and from their closer access to upper management . </P>

Which of the following is not a function of staff agency