Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets (original) (raw)

Structural Change in Corporate Organization

Annual Review of Sociology - ANNU REV SOCIOL, 1989

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Structural Contingency Factors And Organization Structure: An Empirical Synthesis

2016

This study examines factors that determine organization structures. The objective was to examine the extant empirical literature in order to identify the salient factors that influence organization structures. Several studies have been cited revealing that structural contingency framework has for a long while provided the determinants of organization structures. The assumption has always been that structural-contingency framework is deterministic on organization structures. Many of such studies are bivariate, testing the relationships between size, strategy, technology, environment and structure. But the structural contingency framework fails to explain the process by which decisions on structures are reached although it names the factors that have to be considered. This paper concludes that the structural contingency factors are not deterministic in the formation of organization structure. These factors are necessary but not sufficient condition for restructuring organizations. The process of structuring organizations is a political process through which those who have the power to direct firms play significant roles. In any case the factors do not choose but people do. This paper recommends that the designers of organization structures must pay attention to the political process that ultimately influences the organizational forms. The need for alignment with the respective contingency factors cannot be taken for granted. The bargaining powers of those who have the power to direct the organizations ought to be channelled towards the most optimal structural forms.

Powerful and Free: Intraorganizational Power and the Dynamics of Corporate Strategy

Strategic Organization, 2004

The questions of how shifts occur between inertia and change and why only some organizations make strategic changes have received significant attention from scholars in strategy and organization theory. Here the horizontal and vertical dimensions of organizational power structures' influence on the dynamics of corporate strategy are examined.The horizontal dimension of institutionalization of subunit power causes inertia, while the vertical dimension of power differences in the top management team causes strategic change. These effects hold for the simple magnitude of strategic changes, changes that break organizational momentum and changes following performance decline. Analysis of changes in the diversification of Japanese shipbuilding and robotics firms supports the theory.