Nandini Rajagopalan
I believe there is increasingly a shared understanding among management scholars that research needs to be both rigorous and relevant. The challenge lies in how to conduct such research. Research that is rigorous, accessible, relevant, and enlightening may be rare, but we must conduct such research.
Working Papers
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
Design a Prototype of Digitally Enabled Ecosystem Organization Design
The primary focus of business models and organization design has been on the enterprise or business unit. Organizations were defined as systems of activity or work that were deliberately structured and coordinated, boundary maintaining, and goal oriented. Boundaries were an important element of that definition, defining what was “in” the organization and what was “outside” the organization, and allowing managers to control work activities that created value. In particular, intellectual property, property rights, production processes, and employees were sources of competitive advantage and profits.
STARLab Consortium
Digital Socio-Technical Design
What you will learn
• Basic concepts of high performance organizations
• Examples that demonstrate STS principles, methods, and concepts
• Digital STS design methodology, tools and techniques
• Tools and formats for data collection
• What others are doing and learning from designing digital work systems
STARLab Consortium
Efficiency-Innovation Tools
This challenge has to do with using digital technology to enhance organizational ambidexterity
Companies reported that designing and balancing efficiency and digital innovation is hard and fraught with tensions and conflicts. The two types of work produce radically different structures, designs and cultures, which are often contradictory in purpose and management.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions
STARLab Consortium
Scaling Tools
This challenge has to do with spreading worthwhile digital innovations across the enterprise
Organizations are struggling to conduct four types of scaling activity: (1) rolling out optimized processes to the larger organization; (2) growing a start-up business to a full standalone P&L; (3) scaling agile units; and, (4) pushing a capability out to the value chain
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to scale innovations
STARLab Consortium
STARLab Digital Transformation Challenge Toolkit
This toolkit was created for your use in helping your organization through digital transformation
It is based on the work of the STARLab, which brought companies together to discuss common challenges in digital transformation and prototype solutions, including organization redesign
The toolkit was created by members of the STARLab team based on the thinking of the participants and their own experience with digital transformation and digital sociotechnical redesign
STARLab Consortium
Integration-Coordination Tools
This challenge has to do with aligning parts and units of the organization around a common digital transformation roadmap that addresses local and global digital investments
Leaders need to provide clear direction regarding what should be decided globally and what should be decided locally
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to design a more coordinated approach to digital transformation
STARLab Consortium
Hierarchy-Network Tools
This challenge has to do with designing organizational networks that enable agility and connect ecosystem capabilities in place of or as a complement to traditional hierarchical structures
Silos and hierarchies must give way to networks in order to enable rapid adoption of new digital ways of working. Definitions of control, coordination, direction setting, resource allocation, trust, and strategizing in a network have to be redefined and made primary. Ecosystem networks are key.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to design a network-based organization
STARLab Consortium
Front-Back Tools
This challenge has to do with using digital technology to enhance customer-focus and responsiveness
The success of delighting customers through the application of digital technology depends on the ability of the rest of the business to adapt to the new demands of digital customer service.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to design a more customer-focused organization
STARLab Consortium
Digital Talent Tools
This challenge has to do with developing a strategy to upgrade the digital capabilities of talent companies were challenged by the need to recruit and retrain digital talent on the one hand and diffuse digital knowledge on the other.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to shift your talent to be more digital
STARLab Consortium
Digital Leadership Tools
This challenge has to do with getting leaders up to speed on what they need to know and do to support digital transformation
Companies reported that designing and balancing efficiency and digital innovation is hard and fraught with tensions and conflicts. The two types of work produce radically different structures, designs and cultures, which are often contradictory in purpose and management.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you
STARLab Consortium
Digital Change Tools
This challenge has to do with enhancing the scope, scale and speed of change to accommodate the rapid pace of digitization
Despite obvious interdependencies among the different changes, the organization lacked the capability to orchestrate, coordinate, and sequence these multiple, simultaneous, and often fundamental changes.
These tools are intended to help raise awareness of the challenge and to provide useful guides to actions you can take to enhance your organization’s ability to change
STARLab Consortium