In his latest plan to reorganize the city school bureaucracy, Chancellor Joel Klein followed many examples set in the corporate world, except when it came to himself.

A typical CEO at a private company has about seven to 20 direct subordinates, business experts say. Next year, the number of people who report directly to Mr. Klein will triple, to 47 from about 14.

The change results from Mr. Klein creating the position of CEO of parent engagement, who will report to him, and the decision to have 32 community district superintendents report to him. They had reported to regional superintendents, whose positions will be dissolved next year.

Business experts have often said such a large “span of control” — as the range of underlings reporting to one superior is called — can stretch a boss too thin.

“Ideally the smaller the span of control, the better, the more ability a manager has to oversee things. That’s the basic premise,” a professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, John Bohte, who has studied span of control in school bureaucracies, said. “There is a point of diminishing returns.”

In a study of school systems in Texas, Mr. Bohte and other researchers found that wider spans of control in middle management correlated to better student performance, although the largest span of control in the study was about 11 subordinates to one superior.

“We do find with top level administrators, smaller spans of control are better,” he said. “It can reach a point where there are so many subordinates that the information becomes noise because there are so many that the supervisor is overseeing.”

The regional superintendents had reported to the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, although officially they acted as the chancellor’s delegates in their role overseeing the community superintendents.

The plan to eliminate them fits into Mr. Klein’s larger vision of slimming and flattening the schools bureaucracy in order to cut costs and grant more autonomy to principals. Three years ago, with that vision in mind, he attempted to eliminate the community superintendents, who have the power to hire and fire principals under state law, but restored them after the principals union filed a lawsuit.

Over the past two weeks, as Mr. Klein has talked to business leaders, reporters, and City Council Members about his plans to overhaul the schools, he has repeated that the community superintendents’ role will be reaffirmed in the new system even as he makes cuts elsewhere.

The 47 direct reports probably won’t be clamoring constantly for the chancellor’s attention. The community superintendents will most likely first bring any problems or issues to Mr. Klein’s core senior staff, Mr. Cantor said. In addition, four senior staffers who handle external affairs, including Mr. Cantor, usually first report most issues to the deputy chancellor for organizational strategy, human capital, and external affairs, Christopher Cerf.

“The more streamlined system … we believe will make it even more effective rather than more poorly controlled,” a Department of Education spokesman, David Cantor, who reports directly to the chancellor, said. “We’re not going to hire more bureaucrats managing other bureaucrats. The chancellor is good enough that he doesn’t need them.”

A professor at the Columbia University Business School, E. Ralph Biggadike, said that more than 40 direct reports in a company is “unusual,” but noted that Mr. Klein could in fact be ahead of the curve when it comes to good business practices.

“We have certainly moved to having more direct reports than the seven or so that the old management literature used to recommend … as companies have tried to broaden peoples’ jobs, push more responsibility downwards, and reduce expenses,” he said.