Design, Perception and Behavior in the Innovation Era: Revisiting the Concept of Interdependence

Abstract

The innovation era has seen firms adopting a variety of organization designs with autonomous teams as their basic building blocks. Such organization designs have confronted firms with the challenge of managing complex task interdependence configurations. The predominant assumption within the organization design field for decades has been that task interdependence given by design would determine team behavior. We argue on theoretical grounds that research on interdependence should revisit the relationship between design and behavior. More specifically, we suggest social interdependence theory as a valuable complementary theoretical lens for examining the subtleties of how design shapes behavior and how behavior in turn may influence design. At the end of our discussion, we propose the implications for research and practice and present several research opportunities which are expected to further contribute to a better understanding of the strategic organization of innovation-led firms.

Growing pains: Paradoxical tensions and vicious cycles in new venture growth

“…Based on our findings, we argue that structural ambidexterity is less likely to be realized in the presence of CEO tradeoff cognition because it creates hostile competition, as inferior groups may seek to increase their relative importance (Pandza, 2011). An additional factor that may enable or inhibit structural ambidexterity is task interdependence (Es-Sajjade and Wilkins, 2017).…”