Organizational design theory studies the formal structures of an organization; network research focuses on informal structures — the informal interactions and relationships ‘behind the chart’. Giuseppe Soda of Bocconi University in Milan and Akbar Zaheer of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management argue, however, that to evaluate individual performance in an organization — […]
Read More… from How Informal and Formal Networks Hurt and Help Performance
Many project managers are now working with contract or distant employees who have some autonomy in how they plan out the assignment. These projects required highly skilled workers but often are not exciting enough to be intrinsically motivating. Examples include information technology or business process outsourcing projects. New research explores the implications of this type […]
Read More… from How to Use Compensation and Team Composition to Manage Procrastination
Both agency theory and stewardship theory help explain organizational dynamics, although starting from very different assumptions. Agency theory describes the relationship between the shareholders (called ‘principals’) and the company’s managers and executives (called ‘agents’) as a collaboration between parties with different interests: principals are focused on the success of the company while agents are focused […]
Read More… from A Symphony of Agency and Stewardship Values Ensures Family Business Success
Personnel policies are often considered in the context of the individual — policies related to hiring, promoting, and firing individuals, for example. However, personnel policies must operate within the context of the organization as a whole. Thus, for example, the ideal career path within a company seems straightforward. The individual is hired, does continuously well, […]
Read More… from Promotion Vs Compensation: Managing Employee Careers to Benefit the Organization
There is no doubt that social media has improved both internal and external corporate communication, especially for multinational companies. Social media has, for example, enabled corporations to increase opportunities for two-way communication with their customers at a low cost. However, customers using social media communicate in their own language, which means that a social media […]
Read More… from The Language Challenge for Social Media in Multinationals
Should companies allow employees to work from home, some or all of the time? After all, with the communication possibilities of the digital age — from submitting materials through email or dropbox to low-cost teleconferencing and video-conferencing — the old reasons for making employees commute to the office every day no longer apply. Why not […]
Read More… from Remote Working Vs Office Working: Why Office is Best
How are organizational routines — routines in an organization that involve more than one individual — related to the effectiveness of an organizational design or redesign? Answering this question begins with understanding two important characteristics of organizational routines: purpose and business-unit specificity. Routines in an organization will have one of two purposes: an operational purpose, […]
Read More… from How to Design Organizational Structures by Understanding Organizational Routines
Professionals in an organization — technical experts in a service organization, for example — will acquire best practices, solutions, resources, ideas and other knowledge as they develop responses to the needs of their clients. In organizations where professionals work in a single location, the professionals will gather regularly to discuss what they have learned about […]
Read More… from Launch Intentional Communities of Practice in Global Companies
In a world of business in which cooperation is often the key to success, many companies overlook the damage that infighting, extreme competition or knowledge hoarding by employees can cause to sales, profits and effectiveness. At the opposite end of the scale are the organizations that encourage and facilitate employee cooperation and generosity. Employees look […]
Read More… from Ways to Encourage Employees to Help Each Other
The factors that bring people together into a collaborative venture are varied. One is proximity and shared goals: people within a department, for example, have more opportunities to work together than people across different departments. Another factor is similarity: people who are similar to each other, either because they have the same or similar age, […]
