The Simplification of Organizational Structure: Lessons from Product Design

Abstract

The organizational structure of an enterprise is continuously exposed to increasing complexity induced by growing dynamics and complexity of its environment. It is therefore not surprising that the simplification of structural solutions is becoming increasingly important and implies challenging Ashby’s law. In the literature on the structuring of organizations, the principle of simplicity appears to be ambiguous and not well articulated. Moreover, the following research problem seems to be left unaddressed: can the simplification of an organizational structure be solely narrowed down to its complexity reduction or should it be complemented by other measures, such as an increase in employee participation (in the simplification process), to be effective? The concept proposed in this paper represents an attempt to unravel it. It is based on J. Maeda’s ten laws of simplicity of product design which, as it turns out, have significant transfer potential into the field of organizing. It stresses that an effective simplification of an organizational structure cannot be based solely on complexity reduction but requires as well an active development of the so-called bottom-up organizational culture and continuous improvement of the self-management system.