Webinar
ADAPTIVE ORGANIZING: A PARADIGM SHIFT WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATION DESIGN
Charles Snow
Professor Emeritus of Strategy and Organization at Pennsylvania State University
Oystein Fjeldstad
Professor in the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at BI Norwegian Business School
25th April 2024, Thursday at 9 AM EST/3 PM CET/10pm SGT
Organizational designs reflect the opportunities and challenges of their time. During the past few decades, organizations have increasingly been “opening up.” Modern organizations search outside their boundaries for resources wherever they may exist. They coproduce products and services with suppliers, customers, and partners. They collaborate, both internally and externally, to learn and become more capable. And they use digital technologies extensively to adapt rapidly to today’s complex, dynamic, and highly interconnected environments.
We believe that the field of organization design is undergoing a paradigm shift. The established organization design paradigm focuses on structures and complementary processes by which collective activities can be controlled and coordinated. Control and coordination are accomplished using hierarchy – higher-level units control the goals, resources, and actions of subordinate units. The new paradigm focuses on means that enable goal-directed self-organizing – control and coordination by the actors themselves. This paradigm shift is allowing novel organizational designs to flourish; modern organizations are more agile, and they can adapt quicker and more effectively to their environments.
This webinar is about adaptive organizing. Charles and Oystein will discuss their recent book, Designing Adaptive Organizations (Cambridge University Press, 2023). In the first part of the webinar, Charles will briefly describe the book – its purpose, contents, and method of development. He will then discuss the various factors that have over the years caused some organizations to experiment with and refine novel organizational designs. These organizations have led the way in the paradigm shift. In the second part of the seminar, Oystein will discuss actor-oriented organizing and its implications for organization design. He will explain how concepts of actor-oriented organizing encompass the newer organizational forms we observe. Together, we hope these presentations will serve as a basis of discussion about the theory and practice of organization design moving forward.
About the Speakers:
Charles Snow is Professor Emeritus of Strategy and Organization at Pennsylvania State University. He has long been associated with the field of organization design and is the coauthor of the classic book Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process (1978). He is a founding member of Organization Design Community and the cofounder of Journal of Organization Design
Oystein Fjeldstad is a professor in the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at BI Norwegian Business School. He is a former manager in the technology practice of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). His research on value creation and actor-oriented organizing has been extensively applied by leading organizations in consulting, technology, healthcare, and education, and he has taught strategy and organization design to students and executives in many industries and countries.
Live webinar is open to all.
Registration closes 24th April, 2024 at 10 am (eastern time)
Hope you will be able to join us!
