Toward a theory of organizational elements

Businesses are complex organizations with seemingly limitless interconnectedness and functionality. Organizational Charts are the limit to which many organizations consider their internal structure, while others build workflow models to identify and codify every keystroke and communique. In order to provide a middle ground between superficial Organizational Charts and elaborate workflow models, this thesis develops a simple and broadly applicable method of modeling organizations. In particular, ideas from computer program structuring are transplanted into organizational design. Initially, a theory of Organizational Elements is defined. Then characteristics common to the elements of the framework are explored and a small set of example elements is identified and developed. Finally, the framework is applied to two example organizations and recommendations for further work are presented.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Kemp, Alson R

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John van Maanen.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33663

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33663