Creating Better Understanding of Organizations While Building Better Organizations

Current approaches to organization design rely on static, mechanistic ideas that are often out of touch with changing realities. Specifically, organizations commit to plans that they then use to guide the matching of organization structures and environmental demands. Though environments change and structures evolve, the design process ignores the implications of this evolution. In a changing world, a continued reliance on static and unchanging organization design leads to undesired results and widespread dissatisfaction. This chapter seeks to stimulate renewed interest in research about efforts to improve organizational structures and processes – organization design. To build a scientific base for design, research must develop concepts and propositions that suggest opportunities and options for designs and designing