Designing Organizations: An Executive Guide to Strategy, Structure, and Process

by Jay R. Galbraith

Since the landmark book Designing Organizations was first published in 1995, leaders have become more and more concerned with the challenges inherent in managing complexity within their organizations.

Jay Galbraith's second of edition of Designing Organizations is a leader's concise guide to the process of creating and managing an organization-no matter how complex-that will be positioned to respond effectively and rapidly to customer demands and have the ability to achieve unique competitive advantage. This thoroughly updated and revised edition addresses the concerns and challenges of the new global economy. The volume includes an extensive chapter on the flexible organization and a new section that focuses on organizing around the customer. Expanding on the ideas presented in the first edition, Galbraith offers practical suggestions and information that will help practitioners select and implement an efficient design that will help them get superior results.

Galbraith uses a wealth of examples from such well-known companies as Intel, Motorola, 3M Company, and Toyota to show how various kinds of organizational designs operate differently. He presents his findings in a balanced approach and describes both the positive and negative aspects of each. Using his patented and successful star model, he outlines for any leader the basic design categories and processes that must be integrated to produce efficient systems. In this edition, you will find straightforward easy-to-follow tools that outline parameters for selecting a design structure and can help you organize your company to acclimate to the changing needs of your customers, work its way to the top, and stay there!

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Management

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1995

Reviews

[Paulo Minor · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book meant to be read in one seat... it is a good one.
Although it lacks dept in all of it's topics, Galbraith does a great job in alerting the reader about the common mistakes one manager can incur when thinking about the design of his organization. The good think about this book is it's power of synthesis.

[Jonathan Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great overview of the Star model and some possible progressive designs of organizations. I think the frameworks are effective and the ideas ahead of their time - though at this point I think we need to find ways to be more agile in their application than his suggestions imply.

[Nurlan Mustafayev · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an intro book and touches on general design issues. It should have gone deeper into organizational design issues instead of tackling some peripheral issues.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

READ NOV 2012

Good primer for any organizational leader seeking to understand organizational design and the role this group has within the organization. Principles apply to profit and non-profit organizations. Best quotes, "the leader becomes less of a decision maker and more of a decision shaper" (p. 6), "any organization design has positives and negatives involved in every choice" (p. 8), meaning that intentionality is the key, not looking for the silver organizational design bullet...for example "if a company creates an organization to maximize its effectiveness in dealing with one constituency...it fragments its ability to deal with others" (p. 38), and "processes are like organizational software; they are flexible and easily changed" (p. 157).

[Arga Dwi putra · Rating 5 out of 5]

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