Articles

Implementing design thinking in organizations: an exploratory study

Design thinking has been adopted by organizations in all sectors of the economy. In this qualitative study, I explore organizations’ goals in adopting design thinking, the challenges such programs encounter, a...

Authors: David Dunne

A note on how NK landscapes work

The NK landscape methodology has been used by much research in strategy and organizations, and the concept of “landscape” has become a popular business idea. Despite such popularity, exactly what NK landscapes...

Authors: Felipe A. Csaszar

Bitcoin and the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations

Bitcoin represents the first real-world implementation of a “decentralized autonomous organization” (DAO) and offers a new paradigm for organization design. Imagine working for a global business organization w...

Authors: Ying-Ying Hsieh and Jean-Philippe Vergne

Rocket Internet: organizing a startup factory

While some firms build cars or smartphones, Rocket Internet builds companies. The incubator and investment firm has pioneered an extreme approach to new venture creation that is often referred to as a “startup...

Authors: Oliver Baumann, Carsten Bergenholtz, Lars Frederiksen, Robert M. Grant, Rebecca Köhler, David L. Preston and Scott Shane

Ecosystems: broadening the locus of value creation

The objective of this article is to introduce readers to the emerging research stream on business ecosystems, explicating the novelty and the usefulness of ecosystem-based theorizing, and hoping to pave the wa...

Authors: Rahul Kapoor

Collaborative organizational forms: on communities, crowds, and new hybrids

In this article, I examine collaborative organizational forms in terms of their institutional properties and the mechanisms by which they solve the universal problems of organizing. Based on three ideal forms—...

Authors: Vegard Kolbjørnsrud

Field study of complements to supervisory leadership in more and less flexible work settings

Self-management is increasingly required by people in jobs with flexible schedules and locations, freelance arrangements, and other forms of organizational job design. Successful self-management requires a sen...

Authors: Terri L. Griffith, Emma S. Nordbäck, John E. Sawyer and Ronald E. Rice

Research in Journal Of Organization Design, 2012–2018

Articles published in the Journal of Organization Design (JOD) from its inception in 2012 until mid-2018 are reviewed and summarized according to their type: research, point of view, translational, case study, re...

Authors: Charles C. Snow

When firms learn from prior acquisition experience

Acquisition experience is commonly viewed as an important determinant of subsequent acquisition success. Yet, empirical evidence suggests that acquisition experience may not be positively associated with acqui...

Authors: Kalin D. Kolev and Jerayr (John) Haleblian

Evolution of the Journal and the Field of Organization Design

This commentary reflects on how the themes in the Journal of Organization Design have evolved along with the field of organization design itself. Using topic modeling of abstracts, I assess the key topics or them...

Authors: John Joseph

Analyzing competing demands in organizations: a systematic comparison

Organizational scholars have shown increasing interest in the ways in which managers enact and respond to competing demands and the tensions they prompt as constitutive elements of their organizations. There is n...

Authors: Medhanie Gaim, Nils Wåhlin, Miguel Pina e Cunha and Stewart Clegg

The science of organizational design: fit between structure and coordination

Organization design is a major factor determining an organization’s performance and how the people work together in these organizations. In the paper, we argue that designing organizations should be scientific...

Authors: Richard M. Burton and Børge Obel

Editorial Vol. 7

Authors: Børge Obel, Charles Snow, John Joseph and Metin Sengul

Post-merger integration

This article discusses post-merger integration (PMI) and the trade-off between the economic benefits and costs that arise when organizations merge under a new organizational structure and reconfigure their bus...

Authors: Julia Bodner and Laurence Capron

Constructing M&A valuation: how do merger evaluation methods differ as uncertainty and controversy vary?

We investigate the idea that firms’ choices of M&A evaluation methods are influenced by two socio-political factors that arise in the behavioral theory of the firm—uncertainty and controversy. In doing so, we ...

Authors: Hyoung-Goo Kang, Wonseok Woo, Richard M. Burton and Will Mitchell

Transitioning from a hierarchical product organization to an open platform organization: a Chinese case study

Organizations around the world are designing new forms of organizing in order to deal with the challenges of advances in information technology and digitization that promote increases in customization and inno...

Authors: Jiao Luo, Andrew H. Van de Ven, Runtian Jing and Yuan Jiang

On organizing: an interview with James G. March

In this interview with Professor James G. March, we focused on the key insights stemming from his work, with a special emphasis on the lessons for organization science and organization design. We discussed the...

Authors: Jiyang Dong, James G. March and Maciej Workiewicz

The matrix as a transitory form: the evolution of FMC technologies 2001–2016

The matrix structure is sometimes presented as an inevitable “end point” for organizations that must adapt to an increasingly complex business environment. However, observations of the structure of firms do no...

Authors: Nicolay Worren

GitHub: exploring the space between boss-less and hierarchical forms of organizing

In this edition of the organizational zoo series, we take a closer look at an interesting organization design case—GitHub, a software company from California. Similar to Valve, the subject of the previous arti...

Authors: Richard M. Burton, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, Jackson Nickerson, Phanish Puranam, Maciej Workiewicz and Todd Zenger

Design, Perception and Behavior in the Innovation Era: Revisiting the Concept of Interdependence

The innovation era has seen firms adopting a variety of organization designs with autonomous teams as their basic building blocks. Such organization designs have confronted firms with the challenge of managing...

Authors: Abdelghani Es-Sajjade and Terry Wilkins

Challenges to large-scale digital organization: the case of Uber

Mobile computing, the so-called Internet of Things, and the rapid expansion of Internet connectivity all over the world are combining to challenge long-standing assumptions about the mission, function, and rea...

Authors: John M. Jordan

Evolutionary psychology: theoretical foundations for the study of organizations

This article provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology and its relevance to organizational design theory and practice. Evolutionary psychology assumes that human nature reflect adaptations to an ance...

Authors: Mark Van Vugt

Business models, value capture, and the digital enterprise

Firms across all industries are embracing internet-based digitization strategies to expand or improve their business. In many cases, though, internet-based businesses pursue customer growth ahead of profits. T...

Authors: David J. Teece and Greg Linden

Designing the digital organization

Increasingly, organizations are assessing their opportunities, developing and delivering products and services, and interacting with customers and other stakeholders digitally. Mobile computing, social media, ...

Authors: Charles C. Snow, Øystein Devik Fjeldstad and Arthur M. Langer

Seeing through the network: Competitive advantage in the digital economy

Firms operate in an environment that is increasingly permeated with digital technology. The incorporation of digital technology into products, services, and operations has significant implications on how firms...

Authors: Thorsten Koch and Josef Windsperger

How to avoid destroying your employees and organisations due to burnouts, braindrain and fading performance? Stop double bind-communication in your organisation!

Absenteeism due to “burnout”, depression or other psychological diagnoses, is increasing alarmingly in modern work life.

Authors: Angelika Kutz

Nudge management: applying behavioural science to increase knowledge worker productivity

Knowledge worker productivity is essential for competitive strength in the digital century. Small interventions based on insights from behavioural science makes it possible for knowledge workers to be more pro...

Authors: Philip Ebert and Wolfgang Freibichler

Conflict resolution in meta-organizations: the peculiar role of arbitration

Meta-organizations, such as joint ventures and other complex forms of inter-firm organizations, are characterized by the absence of formal authority. This lack of internal hierarchy can lead to severe conflict...

Authors: Klaus Heine and Maximilian Kerk

Platforms, ecosystems, and the internationalization of highly digitized organizations

Highly digitized organizations can potentially grow faster internationally, relatively to more traditional organizations. They can do so by providing a platform, and by fostering an ecosystem of complementary ...

Authors: Moshe Yonatany

Transitioning from an economic cluster to a collaborative community: mining projects in Greenland

This paper analyzes the Greenlandic business community and the recently established cluster relevant to extractive industries in Greenland, Arctic Cluster of Raw Materials (ACRM), to enhance local business dev...

Authors: Maja Due Kadenic

Changes in the structures of U.S. companies: action implications for executives and researchers

I draw primarily on two recent works to describe recent and ongoing changes in the business environment and in the structure of U.S. companies. Based on these changes, I describe what I see as action implicati...

Authors: George P. Huber

Developing a governance model for PPP infrastructure service delivery based on lessons from Eastern Australia

Public-private partnership (PPP) concession agreements are awarded by National, State and local public agencies that contract with private companies to finance and deliver infrastructure as a long term service...

Authors: Raymond E. Levitt and Kent Eriksson

Playfulness, ideology and the technology of foolishness in the creation of a novel market niche for distributed control: The case of iPLON

Distributed control is a technology and a design philosophy that, albeit superior to centralized control, cannot spread because it would require restructuring existing industries. It survives, however, in spec...

Authors: Annachiara Casalini, Guido Fioretti and Andreas Pyka

Complementarities and organizational (Mis)fit: a retrospective analysis of the Toyota recall crisis

During the past six decades, the Toyota Motor Company established a ‘lean’ production and management system (the Toyota Way), which has become an iconic template for a high performing and learning organization. T...

Authors: Arnaldo Camuffo and Miriam Wilhelm

Is there a dark side of Big Data – point, counterpoint

Editor’s comment

Authors: Tore Håkonsson and Tim Carroll

Sustaining extended enterprise performance: a value co-creation perspective

The Extended Enterprise, an advanced form of supply-chain integration, focusses on maximizing overall performance while also optimizing the performance of the stand-alone organizations involved. This necessita...

Authors: Maria Bobbink, Andreas Hartmann and Geert Dewulf

Divestitures

This article provides an introduction to divestitures and the research streams that examine these deals. Divestitures are defined as the removal of one or more of a company’s lines of business via selloff or s...

Authors: Emilie R. Feldman and Patia J. McGrath

Editorial

Beginning with Volume 5 of the Journal of Organization Design, it is our pleasure to be joining the family of Springer Nature open access journals. JOD is the official journal of the Organizational Design Comm...

Authors: Børge Obel and Charles Snow