Organizational Design Elements Research Articles

Finding Fulfillment: An Examination of the Fulfillment of Maslow’s Needs Among Traditional, Remote, and Hybrid-Setting Employees

The traditional office paradigm has shifted in the wake of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation. Workplace flexibility is no longer an employee benefit but rather an expectation. To explore the effects of this change, this study applied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory to elements of organizational job design. Specifically, this study sought to determine if traditional, remote, or hybrid work settings influence employees’ fulfillment of Maslow’s five fundamental human needs. As a result, this study found that hybrid-setting employees have statistically greater levels of satisfaction with physiological needs, safety-security needs, belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs than when compared to traditional and remote-setting employees. These results affirm the benefits of hybrid-setting employment, likely attributed to heightened workplace flexibility compounded with the maintenance of in-person collaboration and social contact.

The Mandate of Project Management Offices Beyond Organizational Boundaries—Still A Blind Spot for Organizational Design?

Based on conceptual reasoning, combined with illustrations from the air cargo industry, this article proposes a gradual broadening of the concept of what project management offices (PMOs) are responsible for to provide added value to the collaborating organizations when planning for and executing inter­organizational projects. Thus far, the ability of PMOs to support interorganizational projects and practices has been restricted—this goes for project management practice as well as a lack of concepts and theoretical reasoning from research in the domain of project studies. Against this background, this article distinguishes four types of PMOs and identifies promising organizational design elements pointing to functions and barriers, as well as to the interorganizational bridging practices of PMOs in support of their inter­organizational responsibilities.

Project Management in Digital Disruption: Emergence of Digital Project Management Office

This review paper has been prepared to provide an overview of multidisciplinary research that combines recent findings in the fields that support digital transformation development. The potential impact of digital technologies on organizational performance is the leverage that enables changes in common elements of organizational design; such are strategy, structure, processes, or workforce. According to reports by various authors, choosing an approach to digital transformation potentially includes an emphasis on strategy, processes, a structural approach, a project approach, and other performances. Such transformation is often performed through a portfolio of interrelated projects that change the organization. Most contemporary organizations establish a project management office (PMO) as an organizational entity responsible for implementing digital transformation initiatives. In this article, PMO is highlighted as an element of organizational design that promises success in meeting the demands of digital transformation initiatives, such as digital agility or innovation project management, by introducing new digital competencies into its professional domains. Such extensions of PMO domain expertise may lead to the transformation of “traditional” PMOs into digital PMOs. The paper analyses the cases of application of structural elements of digital PMO and their characteristics in three Croatian companies.

Effect of project organization elements on the mental health of project management practitioner in AEC projects

PurposeDue to the frenetic and dynamic working conditions ascribed to architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) project organizations, enormous research has addressed the poor mental health propensity of project management practitioners (PMPs). However, research has not considered the distant factors related to organizational design causing poor mental health. Therefore, this study addresses the problem by integrating institutional theory, agency theory and resource-based theory (RBT) to explore the relationship between organizational design elements: project governance, knowledge management, integrated project delivery, project management skills and mental health management indicators. Examples of mental health management indicators include social relationships, work-life balance and project leadership.Design/methodology/approachPurposive sampling method was adopted to collect survey data from 90 PMPs in 60 AEC firms in Australia. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to test the relationship between the variables.FindingsThe research found that project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery are positively correlated to mental health management indicators. However, the research finding suggests that project management skills have a negative impact on mental health management indicators.Originality/valueThe findings offer guidelines to AEC firms on achieving positive mental health management outcomes through concentration on project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery. It further calls for a reconsideration of existing project management skills causing poor mental health management outcomes.

Applying ergonomics and human factors to congress organization in uncertain times

Organizational Design and Management (ODAM) elements of Ergonomics and Human Factors (E/HF) apply to congress organization. Exemplary delegate and organizer E/HF experience is constrained by shifting requirements, time pressures and financial constraints. E/HF application while organizing the International Ergonomics Association's Triennial Congress in 2021 (IEA2021) is described focusing on delivery platforms considering typical and exceptional (pandemic) constraints, emphasizing ODAM E/HF principles and generalizable lessons.Post-Congress feedback from delegates, session chairs and Congress organizers reveal the Congress as experienced. Presenting virtually allowed on-demand recording access following live sessions and increased question-and-answer flexibility. Frustrations included navigating multiple platforms and insufficient communications. Stakeholders’ differing expectations increased organizer workloads and delegate frustration.Maximum virtual presentation benefits require efforts to ensure integrated, human-centered platform development. Simply digitizing traditional Congress sessions ignores potential enhancements. Embracing innovations would help meet delegate communication needs via careful selection and deployment of evolving virtual meeting technologies. Organizational learning strategies can support these efforts.

The global management accounting principles (GMAP) and the relationship between organizational design elements

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational design elements (i.e. quality of management accounting skills and performance management system, PMS), management accounting practice (MAP) sophistication and organizational competitiveness using the Global Management Accounting Principles (GMAP) framework.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data was obtained through a structured questionnaire from 131 Nigerian firms. Measures of the quality of management accounting skills, robustness of PMS structure, MAP sophistication and organizational competitiveness were derived from the GMAP framework. Structural equation modelling was applied to explore the complexity of relationship among variables.FindingsWhile the quality of management accounting skills was found to have a positive but insignificant impact on MAP sophistication, the impact of PMS structure on MAP sophistication was positive and significant. MAP sophistication has a positive impact on organizational competitiveness, but the magnitude of its contribution appears to depend on the quality of management accounting skills and the robustness of PMS structure. The inability of MAP sophistication to exert much influence on organizational competitiveness is attributable to the low contribution of management accounting skills. The result supports the proposition that performance is optimized when all organizational design elements are concurrently improved.Practical implicationsThe study shows that organizations need to critically look into the quality of skills possessed by personnel in the accounting function, as all organizational design elements must be given equal importance to achieve the best results.Originality/valueThe study contributes to knowledge by investigating the quality of management accounting skills and the robustness of PMS as organizational design elements affecting MAP and organizational competitiveness using the GMAP framework. The study operationalizes some elements of the GMAP framework by developing measurements that can be used by future studies.

МЕТОДИЧНІ ПІДХОДИ ДО ОЦІНЮВАННЯ РІВНЯ ЗРІЛОСТІ ОРГАНІЗАЦІЙНОГО ДИЗАЙНУ КОРПОРАТИВНОГО ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВА

The article is devoted to actual issues of development and implementation of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design. Effective corporate entrepreneurship organizational design is seen as a significant reserve for increasing innovativeness and competitiveness of Ukrainian business organizations. The algorithm for conducting an empirical investigation aimed at gathering data about existing design practices of the corporate entrepreneurship system in Ukrainian business organizations is presented. The decomposition of elements of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design is carried out based on the experience of business organizations, which have implemented corporate entrepreneurship systems, and scientific works. The key elements of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design are identified, among them: organizational culture, human potential, resources, organizational structure, clear definition of organizational roles, training, incentive and reward system, funding mechanism, partner involvement, legal support, information sharing model, internal incubation system, evaluation and control system, system of corporate spin-offs. The method for assessing the level of maturity of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design in Ukrainian business organizations is proposed. The coefficients of relative maturity of the corporate entrepreneurship organizational design for each business organization from the studied population are calculated. The results of assessing the level of maturity of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design in Ukrainian business organizations are outlined. The results of the study have revealed a low level of maturity of corporate entrepreneurship organizational design in most Ukrainian business organizations, which is seen as the reason for their low innovativeness. The development and improvement of the corporate entrepreneurship organizational design can increase the innovativeness and competitiveness of Ukrainian business organizations by enhancing the entrepreneurial potential of employees.

Nurturing the soul of the company at EILEEN FISHER, Inc.

The vast majority of case studies in the management literature looks at the failings of leadership and at what is wrong with various elements of organizational design and practice. This article takes a different perspective, the perspective that there is great value in studying and learning from organizations that are values-centered, principle driven, and consciously embracing workplace spirituality. EILEEN FISHER, Inc., a women’s fashion company, has been admired for many years for its specific spiritual practices as well as its attendant human resources and social responsibility practices. The article reviews the founding and early history of the organization with a focus on the development and maintenance of organizational soul through the establishment of values, practices, and policies. Then, the authors summarize the results of interviews about organizational soul with 16 employees from representative levels and departments and offer suggestions for how other organizations might emulate some of the best of the practices of EILEEN FISHER, Inc.

On the organizational design of entrepreneurial ventures: the configurations of the entrepreneurial team

Several studies claim that entrepreneurial ventures should pay attention to their organizational design in order to improve performance. However, a clear understanding of these ventures’ organizational design is still missing. In this paper, we borrow the key organizational design elements from the literature on established firms and we study them simultaneously to provide a first empirical overview on the organization of the entrepreneurial ventures. Specifically, we investigate whether and how organizational design elements cluster together in different organizational configurations. To do so, we analyze a sample of 255 Italian entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on their entrepreneurial team and on the most important organizational design elements: hierarchical structure, size, functional specialization, and allocation of decision authority. To this end, we first use t tests, ANOVA tests, and Scheffe post hoc tests to explore the associations between the organizational design elements and four contingency factors (i.e., entrepreneurial venture’s size, age, industry, and geographical location). Then, we adopt a two-step cluster analysis to understand whether and how the complementarities and interdependencies among organizational design elements give rise to organizational configurations. Results reveal the presence of three distinct configurations, which we named collaborative ET, centric ET, and professional ET.

The Forensics of the American Mafia

We present an economic analysis of the American Mafia’s organizational design elements that promote its survival. Over nearly one hundred years, Mafia crime syndicates adapted their task assignments, performance measures, rewards and punishments, and culture to constantly shifting external threats and opportunities. Consistent with Chandler (1962), the Mafia’s strategy, its structure, and managerial processes “fit” with one another. These organizational elements complemented each other and reigned in the greed and ruthlessness of the syndicate’s heinous personnel and channeled their self-interest to create high performance teams. The Mafia built a strong brand name and an enduring culture. They shunned short-termism and took the long view. The Mafia families had well-defined succession plans and dispute resolution techniques. They attracted and retained people who furthered the family’s nefarious interests while purging those damaging the family. Studying how mobsters chose their organizational design elements to fit its evolving strategy vividly illustrates the fundamental organizational economic principles lawful managers must follow to build successful organizations.

Complementarity of Performance Pay and Task Allocation

Complementarity between performance pay and other organizational design elements has been argued to be one potential explanation for stark differences in the observed productivity gains from performance pay adoption. Using detailed data on internal organization for a nationally representative sample of firms, we empirically test for the existence of complementarity between performance pay incentives and decentralization of decision-making authority for tasks. To address endogeneity concerns, we exploit regional variation in income tax progressivity as an instrument for the adoption of performance pay. We find systematic evidence of complementarity between performance pay and decentralization of decision making from principals to employees. However, adopting performance pay also leads to centralization of decision-making authority from nonmanagerial to managerial employees. The findings suggest that performance pay adoption leads to a concentration of decision-making control at the managerial employee level, as opposed to a general movement toward more decentralization throughout the organization. This paper was accepted by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy.

On the Organizational Design of Entrepreneurial Ventures: A First Empirical Look!

Several studies claim that entrepreneurial venture should pay attention to their organizational design in order to improve performance. However, a clear understanding on how these ventures organize is still missing. Entrepreneurial ventures’ organizational design still remains an ambiguous concept, which has been rarely analyzed empirically. In this paper, we borrow organizational design elements from the literature on established firms and we use them as a lens to provide a fist empirical overview on the entrepreneurial ventures’ organization. We analyze a sample of 255 Italian entrepreneurial venture, focusing on their top management teams and on the most important organizational design elements: hierarchical structure, size, functional specialization, and delegation. In so doing, we first relate these elements to four contingency factors (i.e., EV’s size, age, industry, and geographical location) and then we adopt a two-step cluster analysis to understand whether the complementarities and interdependencies among organizational design elements give rise to organizational configurations. Results reveal the presence of three distinct configurations, which we named collaborative TMT, centric TMT, and professional TMT.

Growing a Team at Landcare: Excellence in the Field

In October 2018, Mike Bogan, CEO of LandCare, a nationwide commercial landscaping firm, was concerned about the significant headwinds facing not only LandCare but the entire landscaping industry at the time. As LandCare struggled to hire and retain employees who could prove their legal working status in the United States, it faced fierce competition from small firms, which frequently did not play by the same rules. Hoping to attract and motivate the right workers, Bogan enacted significant organizational change at LandCare after he became CEO in 2014; these changes included new practices and systems to improve performance, increase employee satisfaction, and drive cultural shifts within the organization. When Bogan saw positive results from his initial round of changes, he continued to expand. Readers are presented with Bogan's decision of whether to implement two additional organizational design elements: “jersey technology,” which would allow him to accurately track individual movement and performance of his frontline landscape teams, and a daily pay system, which could potentially provide his lower-income workers with money on a more regular basis. Students must use their emerging understanding of the organizational design model (ODM) to consider each of these new systems and debate whether either system should be implemented. Excerpt UVA-OB-1284 Rev. Aug. 25, 2020 Growing a Team at LandCare: Excellence in the Field We're not pros at this. We recognize the gap between what we know and what we don't know, and what we know is that we need to think very differentially about the hourly workforce than we have thought in the past. We need to behave very differentially to attract and engage, and…we are looking for everything we can do to better understand what would make them want to be here. —Mike Bogan, CEO, LandCare In October 2018, Mike Bogan, CEO of LandCare USA, LLC (LandCare), a national landscape service company headquartered in Frederick, Maryland, reflected on the increasing challenges he faced in staffing his landscaping crews in an “industry that was largely labor.” Throughout his career in landscaping, which spanned over three decades, Bogan had witnessed several dramatic changes in both the landscaping industry and the workforce profile of the United States, making hourly labor more scarce and unreliable than he had ever seen it. . . .

40 years of global environmental assessments: A retrospective analysis

This paper provides a retrospective analysis of global environmental assessment (GEA) processes and their changing character, focus and political context over the past 40 years. We examine how and why elements of organizational design, objectives, and the evolving political landscape have interacted and changed, with a view of informing the design and conduct of future processes. We find that the historical genesis of GEAs is closely connected to the emergence of environmental multilateralism. However, the prevailing conditions and assumptions which originally gave rise to the GEA concept have changed significantly over time, giving rise to an increasing demand for a focus on response options and policies. We also find that the epistemic and process complexity of GEAs has increased substantially, without a corresponding expansion in the magnitude and composition of GEA management teams. We suggest that developing analytical capacities for policy assessment as well as ensuring sufficient resources and tools to manage increasingly complex GEAs is essential to ensure their future relevance and success. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented GEAs.

Aesthetic Rationality in Organizations: Toward Developing a Sensitivity for Sustainability

This article explains the coexistence and interaction of aesthetic experience and moral value systems of decision makers in organizations. For this purpose, we develop the concept of “aesthetic rationality,” which is described as a type of value-oriented rationality that serves to encourage sustainable behavior in organizations, and to complete the commonly held, “instrumentally rational” view of organizations. We show that organizations regularly exhibit not only an instrumental rationality but also an “aesthetic rationality,” which is manifested in their products and processes. We describe aesthetics, its underlying moral values, its evolutionary roots, and its links to virtue ethics as a basis for defining the concept of aesthetic rationality. We examine its links with human resources, organizational design, and other organizational elements. We examine these implications, identify how an aesthetic-driven ethic provides a potential for sustainable behavior in organizations, and suggest new directions for organizational research.

Organizational and Institutional Barriers to the Effectiveness of Public Expenditures: The Case of Agricultural Research Investments in Nigeria and Ghana

Where investments in agricultural research do not yield positive impact on incomes and food security, organizational and institutional bottlenecks can be critical factors. We illustrate this point by using the cases of Ghana and Nigeria, two of the largest agricultural research systems in sub-Saharan Africa. This article combines elements of organizational design, institutional analysis and innovation systems literature to empirically measure organizational performance and its determinants. Findings suggest weak monitoring and impact-orientation in sample research organizations. Unstable funds, weak infrastructure and unconducive work environment are binding constraints in increasing research productivity and outreach in Ghana and Nigeria. Different priorities for these two countries emerged from this article: quality of human resources seems to be the priority for Ghana, while adequacy of physical resources and implementation of organizational management systems seem to be the priority for Nigeria.

Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability

We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Towards that end, this Article first provides a synopsis of proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, we discuss a series of illustrative cases on the pivotal nexus of proactive law and corporate sustainability. We then advance novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable.

Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability

We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Toward that end, this Article first summarizes proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, it examines a series of cases on the pivotal nexus between proactive law and corporate sustainability. It then advances novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable.

Structural marketing: using organizational structure to achieve marketing objectives

Academics and business practitioners increasingly recognize the importance of organizational structure in marketing. Yet research examining the effects of different organizational structure design elements on marketing outcomes remains fragmented and scarce. Accordingly, this article seeks to synthesize and extend understanding of how firms use their organizational structural elements to achieve marketing objectives, and to offer a new perspective of structural marketing. In support of this research goal, a cross-disciplinary review of organizational structure, its types, and its characteristics, in combination with theories relevant to the field of marketing, informs an assessment of empirical findings from marketing literature. This synthesis introduces the concept of structural marketing; the article offers both theoretical tenets and testable propositions in support of an initial framework for using organizational structure design elements as strategic marketing variables. Illustrative business cases reinforce these tenets, conceptual arguments, and managerial insights.

English

Organization development (OD) is a professional discipline with focus on improving and enhancing capabilities within organizations to meet strategic and tactical goals. That focus is directed at the performance of people: individuals, groups and teams distinct from capital or other assets at the disposal of the organization. To deliver a sustainable environment for performance there are a number of organizational development and design elements that may be relevant to delivering the performance outcomes required. The OD practitioner will get involved in any number of intervention including; training, change management, coaching, mentoring, leadership development, team building, organizational design, evaluation, performance management, talent management, HR processes, learning and development as part of a holistic OD intervention. This study reviewed various studies on training as an important Organization Development Intervention Techniques that enhanced the performance of employees in the organization.