The Microstructure of Organizations

ISBN: 9780199672363 出版年：2018 页码：218 Puranam, Phanish Oxford University Press

In this chapter I outline the micro-structural approach to organization design, distinguish it from past approaches and describe what it promises. The essence of the micro-structural approach can be understood as follows: thinking of IBM as an organization is not as fruitful from a design perspective as thinking of it as comprising myriads of smaller organizations, linked together by processes of aggregation and disaggregation. These smaller micro-organizations fortunately are not infinite in variety; there are a few frequently recurring micro-structures, and these can serve as the building blocks for us to understand how organizations work. For instance, the simple micro-structure involving an authoritative superior and two peers recurs at various levels of aggregation in a large corporation ( HQ-divisions, Division manager-direct reports, Foreman-workers). There are enough similarities in how these different instantiations work to be useful to understand.