Designing Organizations: An Executive Briefing on Strategy, Structure, and Process

Build processes that drive success

A concise guide to creating a superior, more competitive organization. Based on ten years of research, Designing Organizations shows how organization design supports policies, affects behaviors and impact performance. It also tells what leaders can and must do to affect the process. Examples from such successful companies as Hewlett-Packard, Apple, MCI, McDonald's and Citibank demonstrate outstanding design in action. The author analyzes the four key forces that shape today's organizations -- buyer power, variety, change and speed -- and outlines concrete methods for designing a state-of-the-art organization that facilitates effective, rapid response to customer demands.

JAY R. GALBRAITH is professor of Management and Organization and senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Organizing for the Future (with E. Lawler, Jossey-Bass, 1993), named one of the top ten business books of 1993 by Industry Week.