Organization design is a critical organizational capability in today’s world of rapid change, global competition, and frequent market and product realignments.
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
Human Resource Slack, Human Capital Risk, and Firm Performance: Should Firms Grow Employees Faster Than Sales?
Varkey Titus Jr. (University of Nebraska) and Theresa M. Welbourne (CEO) utilize a sample of firms that are at a critical moment of growth: after going public. Analysis of 1,437 firm-year observations comprised of 330 initial public offerings (IPO) tracked over the course of five years indicates that the relationship between HR slack and profitability is curvilinear (inverted-U shape).
Pay Strategy Fundamentals Course with Ed Lawler on Lynda.com
One of the world’s leading experts on pay, Ed Lawler explains the strategic role of pay in attracting and retaining employees and in organizational design and culture.
The Crucial-and Underappreciated-Role of HR in Sustainability
Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) and Susan A. Mohrman (CEO) explain that companies that perform well with respect to sustainability can be distinguished from those that don’t by an array of organizational design features.
The Agility Factor: Building Adaptable Organizations for Superior Performance
In The Agility Factor: Building Adaptable Organizations for Superior Performance, the authors (Christopher G. Worley, Thomas D. Williams, and Edward E. Lawler III) reveal the factors that drive long-term profitability based on the practices of successful companies that have consistently outperformed their peers.
Reconfiguring the Eco-System for Sustainable Healthcare (Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness)
Reconfiguring the Eco-System for Sustainable Healthcare (Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness) by Susan Albers Mohrman (Author, Editor), Abraham B. Shani (Editor) presents case studies and theoretical analyses that illustrate practical approaches to, and further the theoretical understanding of, the creation of a more sustainable healthcare.
Designing Organizations for Sustainable Effectiveness: A New Paradigm for Organizations and Academic Researchers
The article by Susan A. Mohrman (CEO) and Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) examines design features that enable an organization to address today’s complex and increasingly pressing global issues in ways that are sustainably effective. It identifies key social and environmental issues and reviews research examining how organizations can respond to them.
Emerging Approaches to Organisation Design
This case-based research report (Mohrman, S. and Pilllans, G. (Corporate Research Forum, 2013) focuses on trends in organization design and organization design solutions that are becoming increasingly common to help manage complexity and promote learning and innovation. The report chronicles some of the major organization design challenges faced by global corporations today.
Building Networks and Partnerships for Sustainability
Christopher G. Worley, Philip H. Mirvis, Susan Albers Mohrman, and Abraham B. (Rami) Shani, Editors (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2013) The volume explores how collaboration, partnership, and networks are being developed to support the achievement of economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
Janice Schonwetter (AlignOrganizations): Organizational Design Refresher Webinar, 2/26/2013
Janice presents a case dealing with the redesign of HR in a large, global engineering design and services company. A very systematic example of working through the issues of leveraging services across businesses and across regions and how to organize for that.
It’s a Great Time to be a Physician: Building a Healthcare System that Works
Weisz, J., Mohrman, S. A., and McCracken, A. (Second River Healthcare Press, 2012) A first-hand account of the changes being demanded of the U.S. healthcare system, this book is written by Dr. Jeffrey Weisz for his fellow physicians.
So you Want to be Agile? Find a Balance Between “Fat” and “Muscle”, 1/10/2013
In this webinar, Chris Worley and Sue Mohrman will describe their learnings about designing organizations for agility. There are many paradoxes inherent in such designs. Agility requires accepting a certain amount of slack that absorbs the risk of investing in their future while relentlessly driving down costs in present operations; experimenting on the one hand while systematically incorporating what is learned on the other; and developing people to be ready for the future while making them expert in the present. In agile organizations, change is routine.