Multifunctional organisation models

Abstract

Purpose Are entrepreneurial opportunities discovered or created? The debate around this question has crucial implications for successful organizational change management in the business world. The present conceptual paper transcends this debate by embedding the concept of the entrepreneurial opportunities within a Luhmannian systems – theoretical framework which accentuates the unique role of organization and change in the age of functional differentiation. The purpose of this paper is to show how the strategic navigation of the borders between function systems such as politics, science, education, religion, art, or, of course, economy leads to the discovery or creation new opportunities for both business and social entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach The paper combines Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social differentiation with Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy. The key argument is that the alternative regimes of social differentiation, such as segmentation, centralization, stratification, and functional differentiation, create distinct pools of entrepreneurial opportunities to be discovered, created, and exploited by adequate business models. (Business) Organizations, therefore, need to strategically adjust the amount of attention they devote to the different forms of social differentiation. The argument is buttressed with illustrative examples of business models related to the regime of functional differentiation. Findings A paradoxical finding is that the multifunctional business models which explicitly draw on the value creation potential of the most recent form of social differentiation, functional differentiation, remain little known even though they infuse business organizations with a unique capacity of new venture discovery and creation in the modern society. Originality/value Multifunctional business models have so far remained unexplored in entrepreneurship theory and practice. This paper develops a first strategic approach to the discovery or creation of both multifunctional business models and a broader framework of multifunctional organization models.

Analysis of intellectual development behind organizational change management (2012-2022): A bibliometric study

“…To compensate the shortcomings, m-index is proposed by (Egghe, 2006), which is another metric used to determine author impact, and the corresponding m-index has been displayed. (Roth & Valentinov, 2018) Note: PY -Publication Year, TC -Total Citation (citation count may increase with time).…”

Toward a digital transformation of the theory of the firm: Emergence as framework for organizational sustainability

“…Going beyond the profit‐maximizing firm and working toward an idea of organizational contributions to the sustainability of social‐ecological systems, the digital transformation of the theory of the firm would introduce the concept of adaptation. Firms exist in a landscape of many other kinds of organizations, and the environment to which they are adapted consists of other firms, and other organizations, governmental and otherwise, in various sectors (Roth et al., 2018). Competitions is one possible relation with these environments (Le Roy & Czakon, 2016; Roth, Leydesdorff, et al., 2020; Czakon et al., 2020).…”

Fit for functional differentiation: new directions for personnel management and organizational change bridging the fit theory and social systems theory

“…For example, decision-making processes of a bank are expected to place high value on economic issues, whereas those of a hospital are supposed to give precedence to health, and yet, it remains evident that there are economic decisions in hospitals as much as there are health-related decisions outside of them, or that there is bureaucracy and hence politics in institutions of higher education. In a functional differentiated society, organizations may, therefore, said to be multifunctional (Roth et al, 2017(Roth et al, , 2018Will et al, 2018) as they are obviously able to relate to a variety of function systems simultaneously and at different levels of intensity overtime. Thus, organizations may mirror or strategically challenge broader social macro trends in functional differentiation (Roth et al, 2021).…”