The ability to organize is our most valuable social technology and the successful organizational design of an enterprise can increase its efficiency, effectiveness, and ability to adapt. Modern organizations operate in increasingly complex, dynamic, and global environments, which puts a premium on rapid adaptation. Compared to traditional organizations, modern organizations are flatter and more open to their environments. Their processes are more generative and interactive – actors themselves generate and coordinate solutions rather than follow hierarchically devised plans and directives. They also search outside their boundaries for resources wherever they may exist, and co-produce products and services with suppliers, customers, and partners, collaborating – both internally and externally – to learn and become more capable. In this volume, leading voices in the field of organization design demonstrate how a combination of agile processes, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms can power adaptive, sustainable, and healthy organizations.

Organization design is a key feature of management theory and practice. It addresses the challenges of constructing and maintaining effective organizations. Essential to organizational design is the assumption that it can improve organizations. Faced with the ever-accelerating pace of technological change and the restructuring of markets, many firms have been questioning their own organization. This book is the third to emerge from a series of workshops on organization design, featuring new empirical research and theoretical insights. The chapters are organized around four central themes: 1) Towards New Organizational Forms, 2) Dynamics of Adaptation and Change, 3) Theoretical and Practical issues, 4) Fit and Performance. Collectively, the chapters reflect the state of the art of OD as well as provide a further step towards the evolution of this important field of research.

Organization design has been discussed by many authors in management and organization theory. They have obtained intuitive and prescriptive propositions appealing that the best organization design is contingent on the environmental conditions. But their studies, called contingency theory, are mostly based on empirical research. Most of the "propositions" are drawn as only inferences from the results of them. On the other hand, decision theoretic models of "organizations" in the stochastic environment have been studied by some economists and management scientists independently of contingency theory. In this book, important aspects of organization design problems are formulated as statistical decision problems in the framework of management and organization theory. Part One of this book analyzes a short-run adaptive problems of the organization design. Part One contains an expanded exposition of the ideas and results published in the professional journals, and I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the following journals: Behaviormetrika, Human Relations, Behavioral Science. Part Two of this book considers a long-run adaptive process in the organization, and has not previously been published in its IV present form, although a version of this part is to appear in Journal of the Department of Liberal Arts, March 1987, The University of Tokyo. The resul ts of Part One and Part Two are supported by the empirical research on Japanese firms in Part Three. This research was financially supported by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (NTT). I acknowledge this gratefully.

Design has become the key link between users and today’s complex and rapidly evolving digital experiences, and designers are starting to be included in strategic conversations about the products and services that enterprises ultimately deliver. This has led to companies building in-house digital/experience design teams at unprecedented rates, but many of them don’t understand how to get the most out of their investment. This practical guide provides guidelines for creating and leading design teams within your organization, and explores ways to use design as part of broader strategic planning. You’ll discover: Why design’s role has evolved in the digital age How to infuse design into every product and service experience The 12 qualities of effective design organizations How to structure your design team through a Centralized Partnership Design team roles and evolution The process of recruiting and hiring designers How to manage your design team and promote professional growth

This is a benchmark publication in the field of organization design (OD). Featured in the book are the more practical elements of implementing OD in organizations. The recent development in organization design has been sporadic; hence, this book will be an important step in creating more thoughtful research and stronger empirical analyses that take advantage of advances in estimation methods allowing for more complex causal modeling and stimulation technologies.