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California Management Review
California Management Review is a premier academic management journal published at UC Berkeley
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Article Information
Introduction to a Symposium on Organizational Design
Beckman, Sara L.
51
/
4
(
Summer
2009
):
6
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10
We are pleased to present a symposium of papers on organizational design. Raymond Miles, emeritus professor at the Haas School of Business, describes the evolution of organizations as following the evolution of business strategies. New business strategies require new organizational structures and processes, which in turn require new organizational capabilities. The development of these capabilities in turn requires adoption of a new set of organizational values. The papers in the symposium help bring clarity to managers thinking about the development of new organizational models in response to today’s global and highly networked business environment. "The Emergence and Evolution of the Multidimensional Organization" offers insight to managers frustrated by the inability to get divisions in a multi-divisional firm to work better together, leveraging their collective strengths in the best interests of shared customers. "Liberating Leadership" describes the elements of leadership style that are applied to develop the strong value systems associated with companies that provide significant freedom and responsibility to their employees. "The I-Form Organization" not only describes means by which companies are striving to innovate in a highly networked business, but how new organizational models have emerged over time. "Organizational Ambidexterity" draws from biology and evolutionary theory to explain how some organizations evolve and survive while others remain static and fail. It uses the example of IBM’s major transformation as an example of a company that has successfully adapted and evolved. Two other papers in this section take on the topic of how to engage firms in more socially responsible behaviors. Both arguably surface issues of organizational design that might well require consideration of some of the ideas raised in the symposium. "Bottom of the Pyramid" identifies organizational barriers to serving the "bottom of the pyramid" market while simultaneously supporting sustainable development in the served region. "Multinational Enterprises and the Promotion of Civil Society" takes a broader view providing some history on the definition of civil society, and then addressing the challenges of MNE-civil society collaboration. Both papers offer concrete advice to managers wishing to engage in a more socially responsible fashion.
