Organization Design: Current Insights and Future Research Directions

Abstract

We review the research on organization design from 2000 to 2023, inclusive. We identify four major approaches to organization design in the contemporary literature: configuration, control, channelization, and coordination. We discuss the key streams of research that characterize each of these approaches, as well as three emerging areas of research: AI and organizational decision-making, flat organizations, and multiple goals. Beyond the specific contributions of individual papers and streams of work, our review makes a number of high-level observations across approaches. We identify patterns that characterize this body of work, the methods used, open questions for future research, and a discussion of organization design as a theory. Collectively, these observations define the state of organization design research and may provide scholars with a foundation for future research.