Understanding and embracing complex organizational designs
10/23/2000
Global corporations are unavoidably complex, argues Galbraith, an organizational design expert from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Simplicity, he says, should be reserved for customers and front line employees, not managers. Using big-picture trends and specific company strategies, he lays out the structure and value of today's complex global organizations, leading the reader through the stages of international development and the creation of a lateral structure that integrates sectors and geographies. In concluding the book, Galbraith proposes a "front-back hybrid" organizational model with a dual structure: front towards the customer and back towards products and services. An appendix focuses on "the new global process and new-product development."