Literature review 9

2 Literature review
The literature review is structured in the evaluation of organizational theories (chapter 2.1)
and the evaluation of empirical research on marketing and sales organizations ‒ in particular
of consumer goods manufacturers (chapter 2.2).

2.1 Evaluation of theoretical perspectives

The research goals of this thesis consider a problem of organizational design. Organizations
have been studied by researchers for decades and a wide field of organizational theory has
developed. I evaluate organizational theories as a theoretic foundation of this thesis. There is
no consistent organizational theory but rather different theories that all consider aspects of
organizations (Kieser 2006; Schreyögg 2008; Shafritz, Ott, and Jang 2011).

Among these theories, contingency theory is one of the key theories in the context of
organizational design (Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan 2007; Miner 2003; Oswick, Fleming, and
Hanlon 2011; Scherer and Beyer 1998). Many of the publications on organizational design
follow contingency theory (Drazin and van de Ven 1985). It is also the foundation for many
well-known frameworks of organizational design like the information processing model by
Galbraith (1973), the congruence model by Nadler and Tushman (1999) and the 7-S
framework by Waterman, Peters, and Phillips (1980; Sinha and van de Ven 2005; Snow,
Miles, and Miles 2006). In the marketing and sales field, organizational research based on
contingency theory has a long history (Dastmalchian and Boag 1990; Dewsnap and Jobber
1999, 2002; Homburg, Jensen, and Krohmer 2008; Homburg, Workman, and Jensen 2002;
Homburg, Workman, and Krohmer 1999; Piercy 1985; Vorhies and Morgan 2003; Weitz and
Anderson 1981; Zeithaml, Varadarajan, and Zeithaml 1988). The next chapter defines
contingency theory and outlines the classic school of contingency theory. Chapter 2.1.2
compares the classic schools to the configurational school and describes the key research
approaches of the configurational school.

2.1.1 Classic school of contingency theory

Research by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967a), Burns and Stalker (1961), Chandler (1969),
Woodward (1958) and others laid the foundations of contingency theory in the 1960s. About
a decade later, Galbraith (1973, p. 2) summarizes the two key principles of contingency
theory as follows:
“1. There is no one best way to organize.
2. Any way of organizing is not equally effective.”