Nicolay Worren - Organization Design: Simplifying complex systems

A well-designed organization is an effective organization. Decisions about organization design determine the shape and form of the organization not only the reporting structure and authority relations, but also the number and size of sub-units and the interfaces between the sub-units. Indirectly, such decisions affect individual productivity as well as the organizations ability to attain strategic goals.

Organization Design equips the reader with advanced tools and frameworks, based on both research and practical experience, for understanding and re-designing organizations. Particular emphasis is placed on how one can improve effectiveness by simplifying complex roles, processes, and structures.

Readers will find thorough conceptual explanations combined with examples from different industries. This updated second edition includes a new chapter about traditional organizational forms, and is complemented by a companion website.

This textbook will be essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners.

Nicolay Worren is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway. Before entering academia in 2015, he was a management consultant and participated in more than 25 organization re-design projects. He holds a Masters degree in psychology from McGill University and received his doctorate in management studies from Oxford University. He writes a blog: www.organizationdesign.net

This book makes for an insightful read for anyone interested in organization design. It is a must have for organization design practitioners.

Dr Gabriele Birnberg, Senior Director for KPMG, UK

Contemporary thinking about organization design that is both rigorous and practical is rare. Worren combines these attributes in a book that will be very useful for senior managers making design decisions about how to manage and coordinate various sub-units they are responsible for. His approach shows how to manage complexity, not by assuming it away, but by offering useful ways to tame it.

Phanish Puranam, The Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Strategy and Organisation Design, INSEAD

Praise for the previous edition:

Nicolay Worren provides a much needed blend of organization design theory and practice as well as a rigorous approach to simplifying todays complex global enterprises. It is an essential read for any organizational designer

Marc Gerstein, past president of the Organization Design Forum and author of Organizational Architecture and Flirting with Disaste

The message that organization design is a part of every managers job, is a major determinant of effectiveness, but requires considerable skill, comes through load and clear from this book. With its use of challenges, key questions and proposed approaches the book explains complex concepts and provides a good blend academic insight and practical relevance

Paul R. Sparrow, Director, Centre for Performance-led HR, Lancaster University Management School, UK

In training the future leaders of the corporate world, business schools have historically placed little emphasis on organization design. Nicolay Worrens book on organization design demonstrates this is a huge mistake. How we design our corporations has an enormous impact on their performance! Worren develops a novel, complexity-oriented approach by advocating a design rather than decision-making attitude. Worrens book draws on organizational architecture as a key notion and also provides a clear, step-by-step process toward applying core ideas in organizational design and architecture. A must-read for todays (aspiring) managers.

Georges Romme, Dean of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands

This clearly written book offers a contemporary and thoughtful presentation of the architectural options involved in organizational design. It candidly acknowledges the neglect of organizational design in much research (). It emphasizes that the topic of organizational design must include processes of design () Overall, Nicolay Worren persuasively makes the argument that organizational design deserves to be a core topic in the modern business school.

Lex Donaldson, Professor of Management in Organisational Design, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Australia

Simplifying Complex Systems

SECOND EDITION

Nicolay Worren

Second edition published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 Nicolay Worren

The right of Nicolay Worren to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Pearson Education Limited 2012

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Worren, Nicolay A. M., 1966- author.
Title: Organization design: simplifying complex systems / Nicolay
Worren.
Other titles: Organisation design
Description: Second Edition. | New York: Routledge, 2018. |
Revised edition of the authors Organisation design, c2012. |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017056719 | ISBN 9781138502857 |
ISBN 9781138502864 | ISBN 9781315145112 (eISBN)
Subjects: LCSH: Delegation of authority. | Line and staff
organization. | Hierarchies. | Workflow. |
Personnel management. | Complex organizations.
Classification: LCC HD50 .W67 2018 | DDC 658.4/02dc23 LC
record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056719

ISBN: 978-1-138-50285-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-50286-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14511-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Visit the companion website: www.routledge.com/worren