Abstract
New competitive and environmental challenges have fostered renewed attention towards organizational design. This scenario calls for a significant return to organizational design studies that embrace a holistic approach, especially those focusing on the simultaneous interaction of multiple design elements. Organizational life cycle (OLC) models provide a fitting response to this call. In this paper, we review the organizational design characteristics of five seminal OLC models. We show that according to these OLC models, growth in size—which is described as unavoidable—generates business issues that firms are forced to solve by adopting only one possible organizational configuration, here following a deterministic organizational approach. We challenge this approach and propose conceiving of OLC as an evolutionary process, which calls for a variety of equifinal organizational solutions. We conclude by proposing future research avenues.
Highlights
Management scholars have recognized the importance of organizational design (e.g., March and Simon 1958; Burns and Stalker 1961; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Thompson 1967)
Firms require fitting organizational designs (Galbraith 1999; Miller 2003) to renew their existing capabilities (Teece et al 1997; Zollo and Winter 2002). This scenario calls for a significant return to organization design studies that embrace a holistic approach (Meyer et al 1993; Snow et al 2005), focusing on the simultaneous interactions of multiple organizational design elements
Our analysis demonstrates that the Organizational life cycle (OLC) models propose a deterministic trajectory of organizational development showing limited explanatory power when confronted with the challenges of the actual business environment
Summary
Management scholars have recognized the importance of organizational design (e.g., March and Simon 1958; Burns and Stalker 1961; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Thompson 1967). 1) argue that ‘the field of organization design is undergoing a renaissance’. In this modern context, firms require fitting organizational designs (Galbraith 1999; Miller 2003) to renew their existing capabilities (Teece et al 1997; Zollo and Winter 2002). Firms require fitting organizational designs (Galbraith 1999; Miller 2003) to renew their existing capabilities (Teece et al 1997; Zollo and Winter 2002) This scenario calls for a significant return to organization design studies that embrace a holistic approach (Meyer et al 1993; Snow et al 2005), focusing on the simultaneous interactions of multiple organizational design elements. Organizational life cycle (OLC) models provide a fitting response to this call
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