Publications

May 2000
Case

CMGI: Organizational and Market Innovation

By: Josh Lerner

CMGI is considering acquiring yesmail, an e-mail marketing firm. In assessing the potential acquisition, it must assess the fit with its own organization, which consists of a unique blend of venture capital investments and publicly traded subsidiaries. View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Structure; Venture Capital; Business Subsidiaries

Educators

27 May 2014
News

How Separate Should a Corporate Spin-Off Be?

Keywords: spin-off; corporate strategy; organizational structure

2019
Chapter

Markets as Networks: The Dynamics and Implications of Interorganizational Network Structures

By: Ranjay Gulati and Maxim Sytch

We discuss existing research that applies a relational, socio-structural lens to studying organizations and markets. Research in this field has described markets first and foremost as networks of enduring relationships and repeated interactions among organizations. We... View Details

Keywords: Interorganizatonal Relationships; Social Networks; Networks; Markets

2012
Chapter

Institutional Pressures and Organizational Characteristics: Implications for Environmental Strategy

By: Magali A. Delmas and Michael W. Toffel

A broad literature has emerged over the past decades demonstrating that firms' environmental strategies and practices are influenced by stakeholders and institutional pressures. Such findings are consistent with institutional sociology, which emphasizes the importance... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Natural Environment; Business Strategy

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Organizational Alignment in Professional Services

By: John J. Gabarro, Thomas J. DeLong and Robert Lees

Keywords: Service Operations; Alignment; Organizational Structure

2013
Working Paper

Who Is Governing Whom? Executives, Governance and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms

By: Christopher Marquis and Matthew Lee

We examine how organizational structure influences strategies over which corporate leaders have significant discretion. Corporate philanthropy is our setting to study how a differentiated structural element—the corporate foundation—constrains the influence of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; United States

SSRN

04 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

A Dynamic Perspective on Ambidexterity: Structural Differentiation and Boundary Activities

Keywords: by Sebastian Raisch & Michael L. Tushman

2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (B) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Bin Yang and E. Chen

This case highlights the leadership, cultural and organizational structure dimensions of UFIDA. The case begins with Founder/Chairman Wang Wenjing's rags-to-riches story. Then UFIDA's senior and middle management of different backgrounds talk about their leader,... View Details

Keywords: Computer Software; Corporate Vision; Emerging Markets; Leadership; Organizational Structure; China; Applications and Software; China

July–August 2019
Article

Coupling Labor Codes of Conduct and Supplier Labor Practices: The Role of Internal Structural Conditions

By: Yanhua Bird, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Exploitive working conditions have spurred companies to pressure their suppliers to adopt labor codes of conduct and to conform their labor practices to the standards set forth in those codes. Yet little is known about whether organizational structures such as codes... View Details

Keywords: Organization Theory; Economic Sociology; Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Auditing; Process Improvement; Organizational Structure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Supply Chain; Labor; Working Conditions

1991
Book

Principals and Agents: The Structure of Business

By: John W. Pratt and Richard Zeckhauser

Keywords: Organizational Structure

January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg

In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details

Educators

1982
Casebook

Cases in Operations Management: Strategy and Structure

By: W. Earl Sasser, Kim B. Clark, David A. Garvin, Margaret B.W. Graham, Ramchandran Jaikumar and David H. Maister

Keywords: Cases; Operations; Management; Strategy; Organizational Structure

April 2012
Article

Change Agents, Networks, and Institutions: A Contingency Theory of Organizational Change

By: Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

We develop a contingency theory for how structural closure in a network, defined as the extent to which an actor's network contacts are connected to one another, affects the initiation and adoption of change in organizations. Using longitudinal survey data supplemented... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Theory; Organizations; Change

September 1980
Background Note

Organizational Barriers to Department Store Success

By: Walter J. Salmon

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Retail Industry

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Comcast New England: A Journey of Organizational Transformation

By: Michael Beer and Anita Arun

This case describes how Kevin Casey, Comcast's New England Region general manager, transformed a low commitment and performance organization. When he took charge of this Comcast region he inherited an organization that was bureaucratic, had low customer satisfaction,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Relationship Management; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; New England

Educators

Article

The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure

By: Sharique Hasan, John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning

Prior work has considered the properties of individual jobs that make them more or less likely to survive in organizations. Yet little research examines how a job’s position within a larger job structure affects its life chances and thus the evolution of the... View Details

Keywords: Jobs; Natural Language Processing; Jobs and Positions; Organizational Structure

24 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Bank Structure and the Terms of Lending to Small Businesses

Keywords: by Rodrigo Canales & Ramana Nanda; Banking

July – August 2009
Article

Organizational Ambidexterity: Balancing Exploitation and Exploration for Sustained Performance

By: Sebastian Raisch, Julian Birkinshaw, Gilbert Probst and Michael Tushman

Organizational ambidexterity has emerged as a new research paradigm in organization theory, yet several issues that are fundamental to this debate remain controversial. We explore four central tensions here: Should organizations achieve ambidexterity through... View Details

Keywords: Change; Innovation and Invention; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Research; Integration