Organic Organizational Structure Research Articles

Turnaround, Decline, and Strategic Posture of SME: Empirical Evidence

AbstractThis study evaluates how the environment, the strategic posture, and the organizational structure contribute to the decline and performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Based on a sample of SME and through recourse to Altman’s Z-score model, we evaluate the situation of companies that declare they are facing difficulties in conjunction with their financial performance. The results demonstrate that a strategic entrepreneurial posture and an organic organizational structure, characterized by dynamism, decentralization, and control over the objectives, positively contribute to the performance of companies and prevent their bankruptcy. Our study findings contribute to a better understanding of the factors that lead to SME decline and failure while highlighting the factors that improve their performance levels. The study also reflects on the turnaround process and the redefinition of strategies, new ways of planning, internal organization, and management control.

Confronting the grand challenge of environmental sustainability within supply chains: How can organizational strategic agility drive environmental innovation?

AbstractSupply chains are interconnected, globally distributed, and complex systems that significantly impact the environment and human civilization. Achieving environmental sustainability in supply chains is a grand challenge that requires collaboration and innovation among multiple stakeholders. In this study, we combine the natural‐resource‐based view and the stakeholder‐resource‐based view (SRBV) to examine how organizational strategic agility can foster collaborative environmental innovation and enhance environmental sustainability in supply chains. We use data from 758 managers from 185 firms in Turkey, an emerging economy context. We find that organizational strategic agility, enabled by organic organizational structures and regional innovation initiatives, leads to more collaborative environmental innovation with supply partners and higher environmental sustainability performance. Our study contributes to the literature on grand challenges, organizational strategic agility, and innovation management by showing how for‐profit firms can leverage their strategic agility to address the grand challenge of environmental sustainability in supply chains. We also find two interventions to promote this form of environmental innovation: developing organizational strategic agility and organic structures within firms and involvement in regional innovation initiatives to stimulate collaborative innovation for environmental sustainability among supply partners.

Örgüt Yapısına Göre Bilgi Yönetimi ve Örgütsel Dayanıklılık İlişkisi

This study has started with the foresight that in today's world where economies are intertwined like a spiral on the international level, organic organization structures can lead organizations to become more resilient by providing more effective knowledge management. Although the effect of knowledge management on organizational resilience has been discussed in the international literature, what makes this study different from previous studies is the inclusion of organizational structure in the research. In this context, the main question of the research is whether different organizational structures have an effect on knowledge management and organizational resilience. Turkey's top 500 and second 500 industrial companies, prepared by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry, constitute the population of the research. The survey method was conducted with 246 middle or top level managers of the relevant companies. Results suggest that (i) organic organizational structures positively affect knowledge management processes (ii) knowledge management and organic organizational structures positively affect organizational resilience (iii) knowledge management partially mediates the association between organic organizational structures and organizational resilience. This paper offers new empirical evidence which bolsters the notion that organic organizational structures and knowledge management are important for optimizing organizational resilience. Moreover, the interference between organizational structure, knowledge management, and resilience has been founded which may be a base for a new theory about the survival of businesses.

Cross-sectional analysis of relationship between strategic orientation, structural arrangements and size of enterprises in Croatia

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the two basic constructs of organizational design, strategic orienta-tion, and structural arrangements, as well as to re-examine the role of enterprise size in the variations of both con-structs.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out by regu-lar mail in the first half of 2019, using already existing and empirically validated measurement instruments for the constructs of strategic orientation and organizational struc-ture characteristics. Management board representatives or managing directors of the contacted enterprises were asked for their views on the situation in their enterprise in rela-tion to the researched constructs. Descriptive and bivariate statistical analyses were performed.Results: On the sample of 37 enterprises, the strategic orien-tation ‘analyzer enterprise’ was predominant. In addition, organic organizational structure characteristics slightly prevailed over mechanistic characteristics. A regression analysis was carried out, establishing a positive relation-ship between strategic orientation and organizational structure characteristics (R2=0.160; P=0.014), especially with communication as a characteristic of mentioned organiza-tional structure (R2=0.239; P=0.002). T-tests confirmed the significance of the role of enterprise size for organizational structure characteristics (P=0.067). In other words, larger enterprises tend to foster mechanistic organizational struc-ture characteristics. Variations in the types of strategic ori-entation of enterprises were not related to the size of those enterprises (P=0.296).Conclusion: The design and adaptation of organizational and structural arrangements of enterprises are related to their selected strategic orientation. An increase in enter-prise size inevitably leads to more rigid mechanistic struc-tural arrangements, while the status of a small enterprise does not automatically imply the ‘prospector’ strategic ori-entation or the successful development and implementa-tion of innovations.

MEDIATING EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ON THE EFFECT OF TEAMWORK ATTITUDE ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

The behavioral processes in which people manage independent work, and/or the affective, cognitive, and motivative states emerging during working are usually dedicated to “teamwork”. Behavioral processes involve actions like communication, coordination, expertise sharing, and help. Emergent states involved, ie., mutual respect and psychological safety. Organizational structure is defined as the formal system for duty and authority relationships controlling the way that individuals coordinate their actions and use resources to accomplish the goals of an organization that the job was changed from individual-oriented to collaborative approaches, in that case, teams were assumed to be the milestone of the structure for the organization. This study aims to examine the mediating effect of organizational structure on the effect of attitudes towards teamwork and its sub-dimensions (Team Structure, Leadership, Situation Monitoring, Mutual Support, Communication) on team performance. In this context, data were collected from 115 employees working at Fethi Sekin City Hospital in Elazığ, by survey method. “Teamwork Attitudes Scale”, “Teamwork Performance”, and “Organizational Structure scale” were used as data collection tools. The research was tested by using Process software. In the study, the Pearson correlation test, Process Regression analysis was used as one of the test techniques. As a result of the research, the effect of team structure, which is one of the sub-dimensions of teamwork attitudes, on team performance is mediated by the organic organizational structure. In addition, the effect of mutual support and communication, which are sub-dimensions of teamwork attitudes, on team performance is mediated by the organic organizational structure.

Application of Mechanistic versus Organic Organizational Structure Models in Dental Services: Cross-Sectional Study and Review

Introduction: It is critical to understand both mechanistic and organic managerial models, as different approaches of management may need to be applied in different tasks within the same organization. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, single-facility-based study in dental care. A bilingual, electronically generated questionnaire (Arabic and English) was used at a large-scale dental center and distributed through a social media platform to a convenience sample (150 individuals). The questionnaire included demographic data, educational level, and Yes/No/I Don’t Know questions. Descriptive statistics were used for data summarization and presentation. Results: The response rate was 77%, with the age range from 18 to 54 years and female-to-male distribution of 34–66%, respectively. Participants were either clinical (75 [64.66%]) or administrative (41 [35.34%]) employees. One-hundred participants (94.83%) preferred the presence of clear job description, and 101 (87.07%) preferred working with the presence of organizational chart. In addition, when participants were asked about the possibility of training employees for performing tasks other than their own qualifications, there was some uncertainty in answers (Yes [40.52%]; No [49.14%]; I Don’t Know [10.34%]). There was a general agreement among the majority of participants that delegation of authority to lower-level employees is beneficial to the work environment (73.28%) and to the quality of provided dental services (78.45%), which is a more organic approach. When we asked our employees if they agree it is best to base workplace communication relationships on trust and cooperation and not on hierarchy and identified job description, the vast majority (81.90%) answered “Yes.” In addition, informality of communication was the main preference for most participants (61.21%), reflecting their preference for the organic model in the communication aspect. Discussion/Conclusion: It is concluded that contingency and situational theories are more preferred in participants working in dental settings. Mechanistic structures, in terms of the presence of an organizational chart, defined job descriptions, and workers performing tasks appropriate to their qualifications, seem to be preferred with dental workers. Furthermore, there is general agreement that delegation of authority as an organic approach is beneficial for the work environment in dental settings and has a positive effect on employee loyalty. Finally, informal organic communication methods are preferred by dental workers.

The Impact of Middle and Senior Leadership Styles on Employee Performance -- Evidence From Chinese Enterprises

The Impact of Middle and Senior Leadership Styles on Employee Performance -- Evidence From Chinese Enterprises

The Forms of Organizational Structures in Pupblic and Private Universiteis in Kenya

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of managers on the forms of organizational structures that existed in public and private universities in Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey research design with a target population of 705 senior managers which included the Deputy Vice-Chancellors (DVC’s), Deans and Directors, Heads of teaching and non-teaching departments (HOD’s). Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting six universities out of seventeen which were fully fledged universities, on the basis of size and location. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to obtain a total of 248 representative sample from each category of managers. One questionnaire document was used to collect data from the respondents. The instrument was pilot tested and reliability coefficient was calculated from collected data and found to be 0.90 qualifying the research instrument as reliable and acceptable. Data from the research was analyzed using descriptive (percentages and means). Overall index score of six organizational structure dimensions was done and the findings was that bureaucratic features in public universities was manifested at 61.2% and 67.8% in private universities. This was not a very high degree of bureaucracy and therefore it was concluded that there was a mixture of both the mechanistic and organic organizational structures in the universities in Kenya. The study recommended that structural flexibility in the universities was achievable and management could strategize on the initiative. Universities could equip managerial staff with managerial competencies to endow them with skills to implement structural change in response to uncertainties in the environmental situations and conditions. Keywords: Organizational Structures, organic organizational structure, Bureaucratic organizational structure, structural flexibility. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-32-02 Publication date: November 30 th 2021

Measuring market-sensing capabilities for new product development success

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and operationalize the concept of market-sensing capabilities and analyze its relationship with new product development (NPD) success and organic organizational structures. To the authors' knowledge, past measures of market-sensing capabilities have never included opportunity interpretation, through business experience and organizational articulation, as part of the concept.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of over 180 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), market-sensing capabilities constructs and their relationships were tested through academics' and managers' perceptions. The measure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).FindingsFindings reveal theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying market-sensing capabilities components: analytical processes, customer relationship, business experience and organizational articulation. Results demonstrate reliability, convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. All four dimensions are positively associated with NPD success and are more likely to appear in organic organizational structures.Practical implicationsThe resulting instrument provides managers with a valuable tool to measure firms' abilities to address environmental uncertainty. By using this instrument, managers can assess internal organizational structures and resources allocated to sensing capabilities. By developing sensing capabilities, managers might ultimately influence their NPD strategy. Findings also reveal that sensing capabilities are positively and significantly associated with organic organizational structures.Originality/valueExisting sensing capabilities measures are focused on environmental scanning, and the essence of the concept is not fully expressed by the traditional measures of analytical processes and customer relationship. The authors' new measure includes opportunity interpretation through business experience and organizational articulation.

Propensity to trust and knowledge sharing behavior: An evaluation of importance-performance analysis among Nigerian restaurant employees

Drawing from knowledge management theory, this study examines the relationships between employee's propensity to trust, organic organizational structure, knowledge sharing behavior, and service innovation in a multivariate nexus in restaurants. Data from 180 restaurants with a total of 453 employees were used to test the research hypotheses via partial least square structural equation modelling. As expected, the results of the empirical analysis revealed that propensity to trust is positively related to knowledge sharing behavior, organic organizational structure and service innovation; and knowledge sharing behavior is positively related to organic organizational structure and service innovation. Further, this study established that both knowledge sharing behavior and organic organizational structure serially mediates the positive effect of propensity to trust on service innovation. The result of importance-performance analysis highlights propensity to trust as the highest important predictor of service innovation while knowledge sharing is the best performance factor for service innovation in restaurants.

Driving Forces of Employees’ Entrepreneurial Intentions - Leadership Style and Organizational Structure

Research Question: The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership style and organizational structure characteristics influence employees’ intentions to start their own entrepreneurial ventures, ideas or projects, within an organizational setting. Motivation: The main goal is to learn how to prevent innovativeness declining in a traditional organization and make internal environment friendly for entrepreneurial initiatives and for employees with propensity to develop new ideas, aiming to create sustainable competitive position. Idea: The paper explores how identified leadership variables, initiative, pioneer, proactive behaviour and ability to communicate vision affect employees’ entrepreneurial intentions. We also analyze the organizational structure impact, testing organic design, level of centralization and formalization. For measuring employees’ entrepreneurial intentions, we use a previously validated scale and measurements, innovation, risk propensity and autonomy. Data: The data are collected using a questionnaire on a random sample of 208 respondents employed in nineteen Serbian companies. Tools: A quantitative study methodology was designed and implemented, appropriate statistical methods performed, including correlation and linear regression analyses. Findings: We have found evidence that appropriate leadership style has a positive influence on employees' entrepreneurial intentions. More specifically, there is a positive correlation between the leader’s initiative, pioneer and proactive behaviour, and the employees’ intentions to start innovative entrepreneurial ventures. The employees’ willingness to act autonomously is affected by leader’s initiative and proactive attitude, but also by ability to clearly communicate the vision. The study also reveals that organic organizational structure, decentralization and low formalization have a positive influence on employees' entrepreneurial intentions. Contribution: The study contributes to a significant degree by filling gaps in knowledge base, revealing new perspectives about relevance of both leadership style and organizational structure for encouraging organizational entrepreneurship. The analysis also provides a more fine-grained perspective about characteristics of organizational design and improves understanding of the employees’ actions depending on authority delegation, procedures and overall flexibility of organizational structure. Practical implications represent guidelines for practitioners as to how to set up structure and adjust leadership style in order to foster entrepreneurship among employees.

Organizing for cross-selling: Do it right, or not at all

This study draws on the structural perspective of organization theory to investigate how firms can organize for cross-selling. Specifically, it analyzes how configurations of organizational structures and steering instruments are associated with cross-selling performance. Results show that mechanistic and organic organizational cross-selling structures should be closely aligned with financial and nonfinancial steering instruments: while the interactions between mechanistic cross-selling structures and non-financial steering instruments are likely to result in high levels of cross-selling performance, organic cross-selling structures should be combined with financial steering via cross-selling incentives. Findings also reveal a U-shaped relationship between cross-selling performance and firm EBITDA. These results suggest that to enhance profits, firms should either organize for very high levels of cross-selling performance or refrain entirely from investing in cross-selling structures or steering instruments.

Izazovi upravljanja preduzetničkom organizacijo

The research goal is to explore how to transform organization, with conservative management, organizational structure and culture, into an entrepreneurial one. We hypothesize that organic organizational structure, entrepreneurial culture and appropriate management decisions are crucial for enhancing entrepreneurial initiatives. A relevant theoretical overview is provided, incorporating in depth analysis of investigated issues. This paper contributes by revealing the relevance of adjusting organizational design and management style, to make it more innovation friendly and compatible with needs of individual entrepreneurs in organization. Based on these considerations we note our conclusions, and suggest that academicians provide a more fine-grained depiction of firm-level entrepreneurship, as an avenue for future research.

Innovation, Entrepreneurial Orientation, and the Survival of the 21st Century Tech Organization

The tech markets demand ever-increasing levels of productivity, quality, and innovation to stay competitive. Research has shown that the types of organizations that survive and thrive in such environments have more of an entrepreneurial orientation. That means they embrace long-term, goal-oriented management and an organic organizational structure that is able to respond faster to changing external forces.

Dialogue and the Creation of Transformative Social Change: The Case of Social Enterprises

Aim/Purpose: To understand the process of social change creation in social entrepreneurial ventures (SEVs), specifically emphasizing the role and nature of the communicative process in social change creation. Background: Drawing on data from seven SEVs from India and the US and employing a grounded theory methodology, this research scrutinizes the social change process and uncovers the role and characteristics of dialogue in this process. Methodology: Qualitative data was collected from seven social entrepreneurial organizations over a period of eight months from July 2011 to February 2012. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a wide range of members within these social entrepreneurial organizations (n=27) with additional informal interviews with field workers and volunteers. Data from the semi-structured interviews and notes from observations were integrated with analyses of archival resources. Contribution: There is little scholarship about the process of social change creation and the necessary conditions to promote social change over time. Understanding the process of social change creation and the individual, interpersonal, and organizational conditions that facilitate the process is central to design of effective trans-sector TD problem solving ventures. This paper focuses on the process of social change creation in social entrepreneurial settings, specifically emphasizing the role and nature of the communicative process in social change creation. Findings: The reflections and experiences of the members of SEVs revealed that social entrepreneurship is a collective endeavor and this collective character is essential to its success. Collective organization and synergy, deep intra-organizational communication, and a conducive organizational context are critical for the creation of collective wisdom and knowledge networks for long-term collaborative community capacity building. Dialogue emerged as a central category linking the other categories to explain the process of social change creation. Organic organizational structure enables knowledge creation and integration through the process of organizational learning through deep and continuous social interaction, or dialogue. Recommendations for Practitioners: This research elucidated the key characteristics of the organizational context required to support the creation of social change. It also identified the critical role and characteristics of the communicative process required to generate structural knowledge and collective wisdom at the organizational level. Recommendation for Researchers: For individual and organizational learning, trans-sector transdisciplinary organizations require an appropriate organizational context. Key elements of such an organizational context include (1) understanding the ecology of the social problem; (2) organic organizational structure; (3) continuous and deep social interaction among all levels of the organization; (4) employee and community autonomy and empowerment; and (5) attention to subtle environmental changes in the system. These elements in combination lead to the creation of collective wisdom. Collective wisdom then feeds back into the conception, planning, and action stages of the iterative cycle of organizational knowledge creation to create positive social change. Impact on Society: Same as above Future Research: Future research model theoretically and study empirically the ecology of social entrepreneurship and trans-sector TD problem solving more broadly. For example, the ways in the personal attributes of social entrepreneurs (e.g., their leadership style, networking abilities) combine with circumstances at organizational, institutional, and international levels to influence the effectiveness of their efforts to promote positive social change within local and global communities. Second, the grounded theoretical framework developed here should be further refined and elaborated through the identification of additional key contextual factors that affect SEVs’ capacity to promote positive social change and to achieve sustainability in different socio-environmental contexts. There is also a need to translate the findings from this research to facilitate the creation of more inclusive problem solving contexts and practices.

Research and technology organizations’ mobilizers of the regional environment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a contingent model that facilitates knowledge of the strategies followed by the research technology organizations (RTOs) of Valencia and the Basque Country, Spain, to adapt to the turbulence of their environment. Design/methodology/approach The research includes context, organizational and results variables and identifies some barriers that the RTOs encounter in collaborating with SMEs and also the best practices they follow to develop competitive advantages. The methodology used consisted of applying the proposed model to the 27 RTOs of both autonomous regions; a factor analysis was then performed to determine whether there exist groups of related (correlated) variables; finally, the authors proceeded to carry out a hierarchical cluster analysis to observe how the 27 RTOs are distributed according to their ability to adapt and respond to environmental turbulence. Findings The technological policy must consider the characteristics of each region to propose more efficient and equitable mechanisms that allow the RTOs to face new challenges. Originality/value This study proposes a theoretical model suitable for RTOs to respond to environmental changes, to the current economy globalization and to cope with new challenges. This proposal means that RTOs must manage an appropriate combination of key factors, including the development of more proactive innovation strategies, an organic organizational structure to relate better with other innovation agents and universities, which help them to work more efficiently with SMEs and to obtain a higher innovative performance.

The field of radical innovation: Making sense of organizational cultures and radical innovation

Organic organizational structures and cultures facilitate innovation because they allow organizations to shift their understanding of what a product, service or technology means. Yet, organic organizations may have to instill mechanistic structures and bureaucratic processes if they produce successful radical innovations. Thus, the basis of innovation can be undermined by its consequences. To explore this issue, this paper analyzes data from an ongoing longitudinal case study of a SME digital-design agency that developed a radical innovation for the market research industry. The paper observes that founders of the organization shifted their position to become managers as a result of their radical innovation and that other members of the organization have, consequently, re-evaluated their attitude toward the organization. To conceptualize our findings we turn to the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His notion of fields—which structure experiences and are, themselves, structured by experiences—offers a framework to understand the dynamics within an organization that occur as a result of a successful radical innovation. The contribution of our paper is: theoretically, we relate the discussion of innovation to wider social theories of practice and, thus, introduce temporal and cultural dynamics into the account of radical innovation; methodologically, we provide an example of a longitudinal study; and, in managerial terms, we indicate where divisions occur within an organization concerning the construction of meaning between managers and employees after a radical innovation.

Adaptating Organization in Science: How Contextual Environment Affects Task Allocation of Academic Biology Laboratories

This study examines the contingency of organizational design in academic organizations drawing on a survey of biology laboratories in Japanese universities. It investigates the intra-laboratory task allocation between a lab head and members (e.g., junior staff, PhD students) in three research phases (i.e., planning, execution, and writing) and how different patterns of task allocation affect lab-level scientific productivity. Results suggest that organic organizational structure with limited division of labor suits basic research, where exploratory approach is common with high unpredictability, while mechanistic structure is fitter for applied research, which is relatively exploitative and predictable. Thus, academic organizations, just as industrial organizations, need to adapt their organizational design to contextual environment to maximize their performance.

Dynamic Capabilities and Performance: Strategy, Structure and Environment

Dynamic capabilities are widely considered to incorporate those processes that enable organizations to sustain superior performance over time. In this paper, we argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that these effects are contingent on organizational structure and the competitive intensity in the market. Results from partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analyses indicate that organic organizational structures facilitate the impact of dynamic capabilities on organizational performance. Furthermore, we find that the performance effects of dynamic capabilities are contingent on the competitive intensity faced by firms. Our findings demonstrate the performance effects of internal alignment between organizational structure and dynamic capabilities, as well as the external fit of dynamic capabilities with competitive intensity. We outline the advantages of PLS-SEM for modeling latent constructs, such as dynamic capabilities, and conclude with managerial implications.

The Effects of Competition & Firm Structure on the Dynamic Capabilities – Performance Relationship

Dynamic capabilities are widely considered as incorporating those processes that enable organizations to sustain superior performance over time. In this paper, I argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that these effects are contingent on the organizational structure of the firm and the competitive intensity the firm faces. Specifically, results from PLS analyses confirm that organic organizational structures facilitate the impact of dynamic capabilities on sales growth as well as on financial solvency. Furthermore, I find that the performance effects of dynamic capabilities are contingent on the competitive intensity faced by firms. I outline the importance of internal alignment between organizational structure and dynamic capabilities as well as external fit of dynamic capabilities with competitive intensity in enhancing organizational performance and conclude with managerial implications.