Flexibility out of standardization

Abstract

PurposeThis article aims to provide a theoretical unifying framework for flexible organizational forms, such as so-called adhocracies and network organizations.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, organization practices that are typical of the software industry are analyzed and re-interpreted by means of foundational concepts of organization science. It is shown that one and the same logic is at work in all flexible organizations.FindingsCoordination modes can be fruitfully employed to characterize flexible organizations. In particular, standardization is key in order to obtain flexibility, provided that a novel sort of coordination by standardization is added to those that have been conceptualized hitherto.Research limitations/implicationsThis article highlights one necessary condition for organizations to be flexible. Further aspects, only cursorily mentioned in this paper, need to be addressed in order to obtain a complete picture.Practical implicationsA theory of organizational flexibility constitutes a guide for organizational design. This article suggests the non-obvious prescription that the boundary conditions of individual behavior must be standardized in order to achieve operational flexibility.Social implicationsThis theoretical framework can be profitably employed in management classes.Originality/valueCurrently, flexible organizations are only understood in terms of lists of instances. This article shows that apparently heterogeneous case-studies share common features in fact.

Hierarchy and diffusion of organizational forms

“…Adhocracies spearhead a trend toward increasingly flexible organizations, whose origin may be placed with the sociotechnical systems of the 1950s (Trist et al, 1963) but which greatly accelerated with lean manufacturing in the 1980s (Sugimori et al, 1977) and recently reached a remarkable peak with flat organizations composed uniquely by work teams indirectly coordinated by one chief executive officer (CEO), and no middle management in between (Bernstein et al, 2016). However, even in these extreme cases, organizational flexibility is limited by clear boundaries to the activities that organization members can undertake (Cabri and Fioretti, 2022). These organizations are capable of extreme plasticity, but only within a given set of possible structures (Levinthal and Marino, 2015).…”

“…The adhocracy, or network organization, appeared in isolated cases in the 1950s and 1980s but took momentum with the new millennium. It is still poorly conceptualized and little understood, with consultants making use of a series of ever-changing buzzwords that are supporting a never-ending series of management fads (Cabri and Fioretti, 2022). In information-structural terms, it is a series of centrally-managed waves that trigger mass adoptions and mass dismissals without any deep understanding of the conditions and operating principles of this new organizational form.…”