What do you think?
Rate this book
Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels
This Third Edition of the groundbreaking book Designing Organizations offers a 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 latest edition includes fresh illustrative examples and references, while the foundation of the book remains the author’s popular and widely used Star Model. Highlighting the social technologies used to coordinate work flows, products, and services across the company, this new edition of Designing Organizations brings theory to life with a wealth of examples from such well-known companies as Disney, Nike, IBM, and Rovio (Angry Birds) to show how various kinds of organization designs operate differently.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1995
8 people are currently reading
244 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 17, 2019
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.
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.
January 22, 2019
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.
May 24, 2022
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.
November 19, 2012
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).
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).
May 16, 2014
;mwa dowa dpawodk poajd p fjeoi jfoij w jfpWJDA poakwdop kwaodamskd nwi jak d
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews