with Dr Susan Albers Mohrman, Prof Christopher G. Worley and Prof John Boudreau
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
How to Do Relevant Research – Part 1
with Dr. Philip Mirvis (Babson), Dr. Susan Mohrman (USC), and Professor Christoper Worley (Pepperdine)
Seeing Around Corners: Emerging Trends Disrupting Organization Design
Seeing Around Corners: Emerging Trends Disrupting Organization Design
with Beth Gunderson and Sarah Sonnenfeld
Integrating Analytics and OD for Deeper Impact Webinar
Integrating Analytics and OD for Deeper Impact Webinar
with Alec Levenson and Maura Stevenson
From Agility by Necessity to Agility by Design: Learning from the COVID-19 Crisis
From Agility by Necessity to Agility by Design: Learning from the COVID-19 Crisis
with Chris Worley, Beth Gunderson and Sue Mohrman
People Analytics and Change
Click here for the PowerPoint slides (in PDF format). People Analytics has made great strides in the world of HR, rapidly becoming a core capability that most CHROs feel they cannot do without. Yet even as organizations continue to build greater people analytics capability, the field struggles to find the best ways to engage with […]

Analytics and OD: Twins Separated at Birth?
During the development of the modern HR function over the past half century, four disciplines emerged that define the essential expertise for strategic HR: business strategy, organization design, organizational development (OD) and analytics. As Dave Ulrich has often noted, the traditional HR function was very inward looking. In contrast, each of these disciplines requires an […]
Socio-Technical Action Research Lab Design Lab Description and Process
The STARLab acronym “Socio-technical Action Research Lab” points to a specific type of lab which is designed to create socio-technical action research. This paper outlines the distinctive features of the socio-technical action research lab. First, it outlines the ideas that provide a foundation for STARLab, along with the essential concepts of tacit knowledge and design thinking. Next, it provides a brief background of the origin of the design lab methodology. Last is a description of how the lab works – planning, environment, and process.
STARLab Consortium
Designing a Digitally Enabled Prototype—Jointly-optimized Social and Technical Work System
A core concern of the STARLab work has been the “technological lead, social lag” problem. Technological advance is hurtling forward; our social technologies have not kept up. New work systems are being configured around a network of digital platforms into which are built algorithms and routines for coordination, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and advanced analytic capabilities. They provide much integration and guide decision making, as well as enable efficient execution. Organizations are proceeding with the adoption of these systems because the technology exists and because they fear that not doing so will disadvantage them competitively. There is inadequate concern for creating the optimal combination of social/human and technological factors.
STARLab Consortium
Designing a Digitally Enabled Prototype— The “Changing Face” of Innovation Design
Digitalization both demands and provides a medium for different kinds of innovation. An innovation capability will no longer be an option in the future, and it will likely look very different. The “changing face of innovation” will be driven by new technologies that enable orchestrated approaches, often among an ecosystem of partners, to develop process and product innovation, organizational/managerial innovation, and business model/ecosystem innovation. An innovation capability needs to address incremental product and service extensions, changes in the business (i.e., how value is created and delivered) and revenue model, work system innovations to support new business models, and enable greater connectivity, learning and resource efficiency across boundaries.
STARLab Consortium
Designing from the Future: Building Prototypes for Digitalized Organizations
The STARLab (Socio-Technical Action Research Laboratory) addresses the gap between the rapid advances in digital technology and the slower evolution of the social systems that are being impacted. Technology advances carry the potential to fundamentally change the nature of work, of the employment relationship, of organizations, and of societies. STARLab’s goal is to accelerate the generation of knowledge about how to design socio-technically integrated organizations to simultaneously address economic and human needs.
STARLab Consortium
Designing a Digitally Enabled Prototype— a Customer-Centric Design
In the past, growth in the population, markets, customer segments, and customer preferences as well as relatively linear technological advancement meant that a product-centric organization could be successful. Digital technologies allow us to quickly generate insights into customer/consumer behavior, expectations, and valued outcomes, and to build the customer facing part of the organization quite differently than we have in the past.
STARLab Consortium