Emerging Nature and New Organizational Structures

© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.

(This document is referenced from Basic Overview of Organizations (for-profit and

nonprofit).)

Sections of This Topic Include

Characteristics of the New Nature of Organizations
New Structures (networks, virtual org., self-managed teams, learning org, self-designing
org)

Also See the Library's Blogs Related to New Forms of Organizations

In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts
related to New Forms of Organizations. Scan down the blog's page to see various posts.
Also see the section "Recent Blog Posts" in the sidebar of the blog or click on "next" near
the bottom of a post in the blog.

Library's Consulting and Organizational Development Blog

Library's Leadership Blog
Library's Nonprofit Capacity Building Blog

Also see:
Free Management Library Materials Apply to Nonprofits and For-Profits
Related Library Topics

Characteristics of New Nature of Organizations

New forms of organizations are geared to make organizations more receptive, adaptive and
generative -- always focused on meeting the needs of stakeholders. New forms of
organizations often exhibit the following characteristics:

1. Strong employee involvement - input to the system starts from those closest to the
outcome preferred by the system, from those most in-the-know about whether the
organization is achieving its preferred outcomes with its stakeholders or not. This way, the
organization stays highly attuned and adaptive to the needs of stakeholders.

2. Organic in nature - less rules and regulations, sometimes no clear boundaries and
always-changing forms

3. Authority based on capability - ensures the organization remains a means to an end

and not an end in itself
4. Alliances -takes advantage of economies of scale, e.g., collaborations, networks,
strategic alliances/mergers, etc.

5. Teams -shares activities to take advantage of economies of scale at the lowest levels of
activities and ensures full involvement of employees at the lowest levels

6. Flatter, decentralized organizations - less middle management, resulting in top

management exchanging more feedback with those providing products and services; also
results in less overhead costs

7. Mindfulness of environments, changes, patterns and themes - priority on reflection

and inquiry to learn from experience; develop "learning organizations"

New Organizational Structures

Network Structure

This modern structure includes the linking of numerous, separate organizations to optimize
their interaction in order to accomplish a common, overall goal. An example is a joint
venture to build a complex, technical systems such as the space shuttle. Another example is
a network of construction companies to build a large structure.

Virtual Organization

This emerging form is based on organization members interacting with each other
completely, or almost completely, via telecommunications. Members may never actually
meet each other. See
Virtual Teams

Self-Managed Teams

These teams usually include from 5-15 people and are geared to produce a product or
service. Members provide a range of the skills needed to produce the product. The team is
granted sufficient authority and access to resources to produce their product in a timely
fashion. The hallmark of a self-managed team is that members indeed manage their own
group, i.e., they manage access to resources, scheduling, supervision, etc. Team members
develop their own process for identifying and rotating members in managerial roles. Often,
authority at any given time rests with whomever has the most expertise about the current
activity or task in the overall project. Often members are trained in various problem-solving
techniques and team-building techniques. These teams work best in environments where
the technologies to deliver the product or service are highly complex and the marketplace
and organization environments are continually changing. Self-managed teams pose a
unique challenge for the traditional manager. It can be extremely difficult for him or her to
support empowerment of the self-managed team, taking the risk of letting go of his or her
own control.
Learning Organizations

In an environment where environments are continually changing, it's critical that

organizations detect and quickly correct its own errors. This requires continuous feedback
to, and within, the organization. Continual feedback allows the organization to `unlearn' old
beliefs and remain open to new feedback, uncolored by long-held beliefs.

In a learning organization, managers don't direct as much as they facilitate the workers'
applying new information and learning from that experience. Managers ensure time to
exchange feedback, to inquire and reflect about the feedback, and then to gain consensus
on direction. Peter Senge, noted systems theorist, points out in his book, The Fifth
Discipline (Doubleday, 1990, p. 14), that the learning organization is "continually expanding
its capacity to create its future ... for a learning organization, `adaptive learning' must be
joined by `generative learning,' learning that enhances our capacity to create."

Self-Organizing Systems

Self-organizing systems have the ability to continually change their structure and internal
processes to conform to feedback with the environment. Some writers use the analogy of
biological systems as self-organizing systems. Their ultimate purpose is to stay alive and
duplicate. They exist in increasing complexity and adapt their structures and forms to
accommodate this complexity. Ultimately, they change structure dramatically to adjust to
the outer environment. (Some assert that self-managed groups are self-organizing systems,
although others assert that self-managed groups are not because an ultimate purpose is
assigned to team members).

A self-organizing system requires a strong current goal or purpose. It requires continual

feedback with its surrounding environment. It requires continual reference to a common set
of values and dialoguing around these values. It requires continued and shared reflection
around the system's current processes. The manager of this type of organization requires
high value on communication and a great deal of patience -- and the ability to focus on
outcomes rather than outputs. Focus is more on learning than on method