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Organizations exist because they are a better means of allocating resources than a pure market system. Business entrepreneurs learned more than a century ago that it is preferable to hold resources in the form of a firm than it is to obtain them repeatedly from markets. Doing so allows for more control and predictability, and it gives entrepreneurs time to obtain returns on their investments. Holding resources in organizations allows entrepreneurs to take collective action, and over the years business empires have been built in railroads, steel, automobiles, banks, social media, and information search engines. Today, organizations are used in other sectors as well because they are the most effective means of taking collective action.

The essence of organizing is the ability of individuals, groups, and larger collectives to process information in order to make decisions about identifying and assembling resources. Organizations that cannot process information effectively cannot learn and adapt. The field of organization design was born when entrepreneurs, managers, military commanders, and other strategists focused their attention on how to arrange resources inside their organizations. This seminar will examine how and why organizational designs have evolved over time, and it will describe how the process of designing organizations has expanded as knowledge about organizations and management has accumulated. A particular emphasis will be placed on theories and perspectives that lead to practical designs.

You are asked to read all of the readings before coming to the seminar so that you are prepared to participate actively in the discussions. In addition, please skim through every issue of the Journal of Organization Design (www.jorgdesign.net) to see the various types of articles that have been published and the kinds of topics that are covered.

Target audience

The seminar is designed primarily for doctoral students, but post-docs and other early stage researcher may also benefit from attending. We assume students have a basic knowledge of organization theory obtained during their (Research ) Master studies or equivalent. Please let us know if you do not have this basic knowledge of organization theory, and we will provide you with a reading list to prepare for the seminar.

Programme Coordinator & Faculty
Evaluation

Upon successful completion of the seminar, the participants will be given a certificate and granted 4 ECTS.

Application Process

Interested doctoral students should register online (and add the required documents) no later than January 5, 2015. Besides doctoral students, other researchers may participate. The number of participants will be limited to create a stimulating environment. The selection among the applicants will be conducted by the Institute’s Faculty. They will review the following documents which should necessarily complement each application form:

Time & Location

The seminar will be held at the Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark. The programme will start on March 16, 2015 and is scheduled to end March 19, 2015.

For additional details and registration, please visit EIASM EDEN.

On 20 and 21 June 2015, the Strategic Management Subject Area at the University of Vienna will host its biannual conference on Strategy, Organizational Design, and Innovation – an academic conference devoted to discussing fundamental research at the intersections of decision-making, organization theory, and new business developments. The conference will commence on Saturday, 20 June, in the late morning, and it will end on Sunday, 21 June, in the late afternoon. Confirmed keynote speakers and track moderators include:

Further panellists (tbc) are Phanish Puranam (INSEAD) and Thorbjørn Knudsen (SDU), among others. In this call we solicit submissions of (unpublished) papers from researchers at all levels. While we appreciate all types of contributions that fall under the broader conference theme, we are particularly interested in research that addresses questions of basic interest in the field, such as (combinations of) the following:

We ask contributors to submit their papers electronically to strategic-management@univie.ac.at.

The deadline for submissions is 1 February 2015. Authors will be informed of the acceptance of their papers by 1 March 2015. The Strategic Management Subject Area in Vienna will sponsor hotel accommodation for presenting authors (one per paper) for up to two nights in Vienna.

For further information and updates on the conference, please consult: http://strategy.univie.ac.at/the-vienna-conference-on-strategy-organizational-design-and-innovation/ or email us directly.

It is a great pleasure to announce that the Organizational Design Community has published volume 3, issue number 2, 2014, of the Journal of Organization Design. This issue features our memorial project in honor of Jay R. Galbraith and his many valuable contributions to the field of organization design. We are very excited about this new publication and hope you find the content interesting.

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We (Lemon Consulting) invite to a learning event in our “Innovation in Organization Development and Leadership Series”: Charles C. Snow: “Designing Organizations for Collaborative Innovation”, Jan 19-20, 2015, Vienna. Charles Snow is Professor for Management at Penn State University and Co-Founder of the Journal of Organization Design.

The workshop will focus on bridging the gap between the theory and practice of organization design. We will start with an introduction into current perspectives on organization design and their relation to organization development and management theory. Special emphasis then will be given to new forms of organizing that are increasingly being used to organize for collaborative innovation. Such designs take advantage of community values and processes, and they present the special challenge of creating organizational forms that extend beyond the single company and do not rely on hierarchical mechanisms for control and coordination. Guided by inputs from theory and research, the workshop will include discussions and reflections among the participants.

Date: January 19-20, 2015

Day 1: 10.00-19.00, dinner until 20.30; Day 2: 9.00–15.30

Location: Bruno Kreisky Forum, Armbrustergasse 15, 1190, Vienna

Organizers: Lemon Consulting (AT), Hantschk, Klocker & Partner (AT, CH), Chronos Info (CRO)

EARLY BOOKING until Sept 7, 2014; www.lemon.at/charles-c-snow-designing-organizations-for-collaborative-innovation.html

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ODC has learned that Jay Galbraith, one of our founding members, passed away last week. That same week, the Journal of Organization Design published a special issue on big data and organization design with the lead article written by Jay. The special issue was the culmination of the World Summit on Big Data and Organization Design, held in Paris in May 2013. Jay was one of the keynote speakers in Paris. Also, the third edition of his book Designing Organizations was published just a few weeks ago.

Jay’s name is synonymous with organization design theory and practice. His concept of information processing as the basis of organization design and capability has been the inspiration for many researchers in organization design. Jay developed his widely recognized Star Model (TM) for analyzing organizations in the 1960s, and it is a framework that any company can use to make its strategic design choices. His work has received more than 10,000 Google citations, and he was a consultant to many of the world’s leading companies. Numerous organizations have benefitted from his insights and writings – particularly about how to master the difficult task of getting a global matrix structure to work.

Jay loved his research and consulting work, and he was active until the end. His contributions to the field of organization design are immense, and he will be greatly missed in our community.

Børge Obel & Charles Snow

The special issue stems from papers presented at the World Summit on Big Data and Organization Design, which was held at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris) on May 16-17, 2013. Initiated by the Organizational Design Community (ODC) and co-sponsored by IBM, the Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture (ICOA) at Aarhus university (Denmark), and the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, the conference featured 11 keynote and distinguished speakers and included 130 participants from 26 countries. The speakers and participants represented academia, business, and government. Seventy-four papers co-authored by the 130 participants were accepted by the Organizing Committee. The articles in this special issue offer a selection of the issues and opportunities posed by big data and their implications for organizations. This special issues include three research articles, two point of view articles, and one case study. We are very excited about this new publication and hope you find the content interesting.

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Big Data can help streamline a company’s production or improve our welfare services. But we cannot make the most of Big Data until we have learned to harness the vast amount of information. This is the conclusion of a new international White Paper based on input from 130 researchers, business professionals and governmental officials. The paper has been sent to the European Commission. The initiators hope that their call-to-action will give rise to new research and funding activities.

When you use your credit card you produce data about what you have bought, where and when. Google uses your online searches to forecast when and where the next flu epidemic will occur. Big Data is created constantly and everywhere, and by exploiting this knowledge about our whereabouts and behaviour, private and public organisations can optimise their production and services.

But according to Professor Børge Obel, who is centre director of Aarhus University's Interdisciplinary Centre for Organizational Architecture (ICOA), we must learn to process and handle all of these intangible data before we can profit properly.

"Big Data holds countless opportunities as well as liabilities. We need more research on relevant issues in order to learn to exploit Big Data properly with the right legislation and regulation," says Børge Obel, who is one of the initiators of a new comprehensive report, Unleashing the Potential of Big Data. The White Paper was developed by the research centre ICOA at Aarhus University in collaboration with Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, IBM and the Organizational Design Community.

The White Paper is the product of the World Summit on Big data and Organization Design, which was held at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris in May 2013. The participants were representatives of the business community, government representatives and the world’s leading researchers on Big Data.

FULL ARTICLE WHITE PAPER VISIT WEBSITE

It is a great pleasure to announce that the Organizational Design Community (www.orgdesigncomm.com) has published volume 2, issue number 3, 2013, of the Journal of Organization Design (www.jorgdesign.net). Please enjoy the papers appearing in our last issue of the year. There are several great pieces in this issue, including a special topic on Making Organization Design Knowledge Actionable with a case study of and commentaries on Ascension Health. In addition there is a translational article and one point of view article. We are very excited about this new publication and hope you find the content interesting.

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It is a great pleasure to announce that the Organizational Design Community (www.orgdesigncomm.com) has published volume 2, issue number 2, 2013, of the Journal of Organization Design (www.jorgdesign.net). We are very excited about this new publication and hope you find the content interesting. This issue contains three research articles, one case study, and one point of view. Enjoy this new issue and please help us spread the news!

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It is a great pleasure to announce that the Organizational Design Community (www.orgdesigncomm.com) has published volume 2, issue number 1, 2013, of the Journal of Organization Design (www.jorgdesign.net). We are very excited about this new publication and hope you find the content interesting. This issue contains an editorial, two research articles, one case study (our new article section), and two points of view. Enjoy and spread the news!

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