Organizational Structure

A university study unit that walks through every major structure type: line, line and staff, functional, divisional, matrix, project, network, boundaryless and inverted pyramid. Each one comes with its advantages, drawbacks and review questions.

Indira Gandhi National Open University

Summarizes Henry Mintzberg's framework for classifying organizations by their key part, main coordinating mechanism and degree of decentralization. It explains his five configurations, from simple structure and machine bureaucracy to adhocracy.

Fred C. Lunenburg

A qualitative study of how digital transformation reshapes the IT function in established organizations. It tracks changes in IT structure, the role of the CIO, and the new leadership patterns that emerge.

Jostein Engesmo and Niki Panteli

Argues that organization design should be a forward-looking science and examines the fit between structure and coordination mechanisms such as information, decisions, trust and incentives. It introduces the multi-contingency approach behind Burton and Obel's design model.

Richard M. Burton and Børge Obel