Where Do New Organizational Forms Come From? Management Logics as a Source of Coevolution

Abstract

textabstractMany scholars have described organization form as a management tool in the alignment of organization and environment. As the environment of many companies becomes more chaotic, the exploration of organization forms characterized by flexibility and adaptability has been intensifying. When reviewing existing literature on new organization forms, several gaps become apparent. These gaps can be traced back to the artificial separation between the macrolevel and the firm level of analysis and the prevalence of a static notion of form. To contribute to a more encompassing theory of new organization forms, a coevolutionary perspective is suggested. In this perspective, contextual variation of macrolevel management logics is proposed as a key mediator in the coevolution of organization and environment. At the firm level, the contextual variation of management logics is reflected in shared managerial schemas underlying strategic design actions. The resulting coevolutionary model shows how contextual applications of management logics may be a source of variation in new organization forms. On the basis of a literature review, three management logics, representing ideal types, are described: classical management logic, modern management logic, and postindustrial management logic. These logics are related to three levers of design actions which reflect fundamentally different interventions in form. Linking management logics to design levers results in a set of propositions to be tested in future empirical research.

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