While the usefulness of the attention-based view in understanding the role of headquarters-subsidiary relationships in multinational companies (MNC) is well established, recent research on corporate headquarters (CHQ) has moved beyond the simplistic conception of CHQ as a unitary entity. In this...

This paper combines theories of organizational design with theories of production to provide a novel perspective, which helps explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated "modern" corporations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I describe the...

The notion of organizational hierarchy is disputed, also in view of the rise of new organizational forms claimed to have "hierarchies without bosses." To better understand the contested nature of hierarchy, this essay provides a systemic perspective on organizational hierarchy defined as a...

The type of organization design that I practice is strategic organization design. It has roots in Chandler's (1962) work which states, "Structure follows strategy." It applies to organizing at the enterprise, business unit, region, or functional levels. It is a top-down design methodology. The...

Increasingly, organizations are assessing their opportunities, developing and delivering products and services, and interacting with customers and other stakeholders digitally. Mobile computing, social media, and big data are the drivers of the future workplace, and these and other digitally...

In this edition of the organizational zoo series, we take a closer look at an interesting organization design case-GitHub, a software company from California. Similar to Valve, the subject of the previous article in the series (Puranam and Håkonsson, J Organ Design 4: 2-4, 2015) GitHub is used...

Organizations around the world are designing new forms of organizing in order to deal with the challenges of advances in information technology and digitization that promote increases in customization and innovation in the face of global competition. This paper presents a case study examining...

While some firms build cars or smartphones, Rocket Internet builds companies. The incubator and investment firm has pioneered an extreme approach to new venture creation that is often referred to as a "startup factory:" it rapidly assembles and scales new companies, replicating business models...

Bitcoin represents the first real-world implementation of a "decentralized autonomous organization" (DAO) and offers a new paradigm for organization design. Imagine working for a global business organization whose routine tasks are powered by a software protocol instead of being governed by...