Faced with the ever-accelerating pace of technological change and the
restructuring of markets, many firms have been questioning the
appropriateness of their own organizational structure and effectiveness.
Consequently, we have witnessed much organizational experimentation and
the development of new forms of organizing over the last decade. Firms
are more dependent than ever on the need for continuous and radical
innovations - and often innovations that go beyond their existing
businesses. This challenges firms in terms of knowledge and idea
sharing, and often necessitates the need to expand beyond the boundaries
of the single firm for multi-party collaboration to meet serious
challenges and develop creative solutions.
Drawing from the Fourth International Workshop on Organization Design,
and featuring contributions from an international array of specialists,
this volume focuses on the expansion beyond the boundaries of the single
firm and multi-firm networks, to include, for example, community-based
organization designs. A community is a connected set of firms; the
connections can take on many different dimensions. For organization
design theory, community-based organizations have many implications. For
one, organization design theory has to identify and describe designs
that enhance collaborative behavior among firms without restricting the
ability of the individual firm to continue to compete within its own
marketplace. Moreover, organization design theory also has to identify
and describe information processing strategies and designs that allow
the continuous generation, sharing, and application of existing
information and knowledge.
The development of effective collaborative community designs is
critically important to the global economy because, increasingly, our
future depends on pursuing shared goals and sustainably developing our
global commons. Ideally, the ideas and findings in this book will
contribute to increased attention to new organization designs capable of
meeting 21st-century opportunities and challenges.
