Experts from different specialties are fused into temporary project teams that innovate, with little formalization and authority that moves to whoever has the expertise.
What it is
An adhocracy fuses experts from different specialties into small project teams that form around a problem and break up when it is solved, with authority going to whoever has the needed expertise.
The adhocracy deploys experts from functional units into small project teams
Select a unit or a letter to read it; the key above the drawing names the lines and letters used. The teams form and dissolve with no stable line above them, so the apex's lines to them are dotted.
Reports toAdvises, or reports indirectlyAdjust to each other directlyMMutual adjustment2Two superiors
Select a unit or a letter to read it. M, mutual adjustment: People coordinate their own work by informal communication with each other.Strategic apex. Layer: Strategic apex. No single head above it. In this form the line and staff distinction, and even the apex, blur (Mintzberg 1980).Functional unit. Layer: Functions and teams. Reports to Strategic apex. By function. Groups specialists by their expertise for housekeeping, while the work itself is done in project teams (Mintzberg 1980).Project team. Layer: Functions and teams. No single head above it. By project. A small market-based team that fuses experts from different specialties around a problem and breaks up when it is solved.Project team. Layer: Functions and teams. No single head above it. By project. Anyone with some needed expertise can join a project, even from outside the organization (Mintzberg 2024).Expert. Layer: Experts. Reports to Functional unit and Project team. A specialist with formal training, in a functional unit and a project team at once, so the matrix dispenses with unity of command (Mintzberg 1980).M, mutual adjustment. People coordinate their own work by informal communication with each other.
The structure in words
- Strategic apex
- Strategic apex, no single head above it. In this form the line and staff distinction, and even the apex, blur (Mintzberg 1980).
- Functions and teams
- Functional unit, reports to Strategic apex, grouped by function. Groups specialists by their expertise for housekeeping, while the work itself is done in project teams (Mintzberg 1980).
- Project team, no single head above it, grouped by project. A small market-based team that fuses experts from different specialties around a problem and breaks up when it is solved.
- Project team, no single head above it, grouped by project. Anyone with some needed expertise can join a project, even from outside the organization (Mintzberg 2024).
- Experts
- Expert, reports to Functional unit and Project team. A specialist with formal training, in a functional unit and a project team at once, so the matrix dispenses with unity of command (Mintzberg 1980).
- Strategic apex and Project team: advises, or reports indirectly.
- Strategic apex and Project team: advises, or reports indirectly.
- Project team and Project team: adjust to each other directly, coordinated by mutual adjustment.
Specialists are housed in functional units and deployed to small project teams at the same time, in a matrix that dispenses with unity of command. Mutual adjustment coordinates the work within and between the teams.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Mintzberg 2024.
Mintzberg's (1980) synthesis of earlier research gives its dimension profile, theory except where marked:
- Grouping: several bases at once: functional units for housekeeping, small project teams for the work, often in a matrix.
- Specialization: high, horizontal, based on formal training.
- Formalization: low.
- Centralization: decentralized.
- Layers and span: moderate, our judgment: units are small, but line, staff, and apex blur.
- Decision rights: selective vertical and horizontal decentralization to work constellations of managers, staff, and experts.
- Coordinating mechanism: mutual adjustment.
- Lateral mechanisms: matrix and many liaison devices.
- Differentiation against integration: high differentiation, heavy integration, as in the plastics firms of Lawrence and Lorsch (1967, a multi-firm comparative field study).
- Mode of exchange: clan, our judgment: Ouchi (1980), a conceptual article, predicts the clan where performance ambiguity is high and goal incongruence low; innovation work has the first, and nothing on record shows the second.
- Boundary permeability: permeable: anyone with needed expertise can join a project, even from outside (Mintzberg 2024).
Where the adhocracy (innovative organization) sits on the eleven dimensions
The filled segments are the form's levels; select a row for its reason and sources.
Select a dimension to read why the form sits there, and on what basis.Basis of grouping: Two or more at once. Basis: Theory. Specialists are grouped in functional units for housekeeping and deployed in small market-based project teams, with extensive use of matrix structure. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Specialization: High. Basis: Theory. Extensive horizontal job specialization based on formal training. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Standardization and formalization: Low. Basis: Theory. Organic structure with little formalization of behavior. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Centralization: Decentralized. Basis: Theory. Sophisticated innovation calls for organic structure with a good deal of decentralization. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Layers and span of control: Moderate. Basis: Judgment. Units are small throughout, which on this scale means narrow spans, yet the line and staff distinction and even the apex blur; the scale's pairing of span and depth fits poorly, so the band is judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Decision rights and the locus of authority: Selective vertical and horizontal decentralization. Basis: Theory. Mintzberg's Type D: selective decentralization to work constellations of line managers, staff, and operating experts at various places. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Prime coordinating mechanism: Mutual adjustment. Basis: Theory. Mutual adjustment, the key mechanism, within and between the project teams. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Lateral mechanisms: Matrix. Basis: Theory. Many liaison devices throughout and extensive reliance on matrix structure, dispensing with unity of command. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Differentiation against integration: High differentiation, heavy integration. Basis: Theory. Mintzberg finds the configuration in Lawrence and Lorsch's plastics companies, the most differentiated firms, integrated by an integrating department and cross-functional teams. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967a.Mode of exchange and control: Clan. Basis: Judgment. Ouchi predicts the clan is efficient where performance ambiguity is high and goal incongruence low; innovation work has the first, and no work read shows the second for this form, so the level is judgment, as no work places the form. Sources: Ouchi 1980.Boundary permeability: Permeable. Basis: Theory. Mintzberg writes that since the projects are the center of attention, anyone with some necessary expertise can join in, even from outside the organization, so the borders of the project pioneer, his later name for the adhocracy, tend to be the most permeable of all; in the operating adhocracy project work is done directly for clients. Sources: Mintzberg 2024; Mintzberg 1980.
Nine of the eleven levels rest on theory, none on evidence, and two on judgment. No row is contested.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967a, a multi-firm comparative field study; Ouchi 1980, a conceptual article; Mintzberg 2024.
Where it came from
Warren Bennis and Philip Slater, in The Temporary Society (1968), forecast temporary systems: task forces of strangers with diverse professional skills, organized around problems. Alvin Toffler, drawing on Bennis, named the form in a chapter of Future Shock (1970), "Organizations: The Coming Ad-hocracy." Both books are forecasts, not studies.
The schools of organization design and the forms' origins, 1900 to now
Each row is a school's era; each square under them is a form at its first year. Select a row or a square to read it; on a form's page, its own square and span are marked, with the schools that treat it.
The forms by first year
Schools that treat this form: Structural contingency theory and Configuration theory.
Select a school's row or a form's square to read it.Select a form's square to read it; open a school below.Bureaucracy and its critics1900s to 1950s, revived from the 1990sWhat it claimsWeber held that rational-legal authority exercised through an office hierarchy, written rules, trained officials, and promotion by qualification is technically superior in precision, speed, and reliability. Critics studied its unintended consequences, Michels's iron law sharpest.What it has shownMerton (1940) argued, with no test, that rules can turn from means into ends; case studies followed. The Aston group concluded that the type's dimensions vary independently, and Wagner's meta-analysis (2021) found that many of their interrelationships have weakened.Who disputes itHuman relations and System 4 sets the costs of impersonal rules to motivation and cooperation against the technical superiority Weber stresses.Bureaucracy and its critics in The Schools of Organization DesignClassical administration1910s to 1940s, and in German to the 1970sWhat it claimsThere are general principles of administration, among them division of work, unity of command, a scalar chain of authority, and a limited span of control, and a structure built to them will be efficient in most settings. Taylor added that planners should set work methods.What it has shownThe school offered reasoning and experience, not tests. Woodward (1965) found that the spans and levels of the more successful firms in her sample differed by production system, and Simon (1946) showed that the principles come in pairs that point in opposite directions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory found that the structure of successful firms varies with technology and environment, where classical writers treat their principles as general.Classical administration in The Schools of Organization DesignHuman relations and System 41920s to 1960sWhat it claimsOutput depends on the social relations of work, the norms of informal groups, and the style of supervision as much as on formal design. Likert's System 4, overlapping work groups joined by linking-pin managers under participative management, outperforms authoritative systems.What it has shownThe founding evidence is the Hawthorne studies, which later reanalyses dispute (Carey 1967; Levitt and List 2011). Likert's support came largely from his own institute's surveys. Wagner (1994) found participation's effects on performance and satisfaction significant but small.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads human relations as a technique of managerial control rather than a change in the distribution of power.Human relations and System 4 in The Schools of Organization DesignTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis1937, then the 1970s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms exist, and are organized as they are, to economize on transaction costs. Hierarchy replaces the market when assets are specific, uncertainty is high, and exchange is frequent, and the multidivisional form should outperform the functional form in large, diversified firms.What it has shownArmour and Teece (1978) found, in United States petroleum firms from 1955 to 1973, a positive relationship between the multidivisional form and profitability while the form was spreading, but not once an equilibrium in organizational form was reached.Who disputes itThe network perspective on organizations: Granovetter argued that the theory undersocializes economic action, which is embedded in networks of personal relations that also produce trust and order.Transaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view1940s to the presentWhat it claimsPeople in organizations are boundedly rational, so structure matters because it sets the premises of their decisions and channels their attention: who sees which problems, which goals they pursue, and which routines they follow. Ocasio makes structure distribute attention.What it has shownMarch and Simon (1958) drew propositions from the existing literature, and Cyert and March (1963) added process models and simulations. Two studies show hierarchy shaping what is sent up as well as what is chosen (Reitzig and Maciejovsky 2015; Keum and See 2017).Who disputes itOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities models a principal and agents with defined objectives; the Carnegie school, firms as coalitions with unresolved goal conflict.The Carnegie school and the attention-based view in The Schools of Organization DesignSocio-technical systems1950s to 1980sWhat it claimsAn organization is a social system and a technical system that must be designed together. The same technology admits more than one way of organizing work, and groups that own a whole task and control its variances at the source perform better and are more satisfied.What it has shownTrist and Bamforth (1951) found that longwall mechanization broke up self-regulating work groups. A review of 134 experiments found them extremely successful overall, and Stewart (2006) linked team autonomy to performance; studies of socialist brigades and Volkswagen qualify it.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory: Kelly argued that labor intensification, not joint optimization, accounts for what socio-technical redesign achieved, and that the part of pay incentives was seriously underestimated.Socio-technical systems in The Schools of Organization DesignThe economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership1958 to the presentWhat it claimsA firm run by its workers behaves differently from one run for investors: Ward modeled the Yugoslav-style firm as maximizing income per worker. Hansmann argued that an ownership form's success depends on the balance between the costs of market contracting and of ownership.What it has shownBurdín (2014) found a 29 percent lower hazard of dissolution for Uruguayan worker-managed firms than for conventional ones, and Fakhfakh, Pérotin, and Gago (2012) found French labor-managed firms as productive or more so in every industry studied.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Jensen and Meckling) contrasts the labor-managed firm, in which tradable residual claims are legally prohibited, with cooperatives and partnerships that arise out of voluntary contracting.The economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership in The Schools of Organization DesignModularity and the mirroring hypothesis1960s to the presentWhat it claimsComplex systems are built of nearly decomposable parts, and an organization's structure tends to mirror the architecture of what it makes: modular products allow loosely coupled organizations, and tightly coupled products need tightly coupled teams. Conway's law runs in reverse.What it has shownColfer and Baldwin (2016) review the empirical studies and report both support and principled exceptions. Direct tests point both ways: MacCormack, Baldwin, and Rusnak (2012) found open source products more modular than their commercial pairs; dynamic components break the mirror.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it answers information processing, which meets the coordination load inside the organization; mirroring writers locate it in the product's architecture.Modularity and the mirroring hypothesis in The Schools of Organization DesignStrategy and structure1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsStructure follows strategy: firms that diversify by product or geography outgrow the centralized functional structure and, after a lag and usually a crisis, adopt divisions. Chandler drew this from the histories of DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Sears.What it has shownChandler (1962) is comparative business history of four firms set against a wider survey. Rumelt (1974) related diversification and structure to performance, and Egelhoff (1988), with 34 multinationals, found some of Stopford and Wells's relationships supported and others not.Who disputes itInstitutional theory: in Fligstein's model divisions spread with a product-related or unrelated strategy, presidents from sales or finance, and other firms in the industry changing; strategy was one of three.Strategy and structure in The Schools of Organization DesignStructural contingency theory1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThere is no one best structure. Performance depends on fit between structure and contingencies such as environment, technology, size, and strategy, on an open-system view of the organization. Drazin and Van de Ven separate fit as selection, interaction, and systems.What it has shownBurns and Stalker, Woodward, and the Aston group related structure to context; Drazin and Van de Ven (1985) supported selection and systems fit only. Pennings (1975) found that fit did not explain effectiveness; Schoonhoven (1981) found traditional hypotheses unsupported.Who disputes itStrategic choice: Child argued that contingency theory explains structure by the constraints of context and leaves out the political process by which power-holders choose strategic action, structural forms included.Structural contingency theory in The Schools of Organization DesignThe French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis)1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsA bureaucracy is a system of power relations organized around zones of uncertainty. Impersonal rules and centralization protect members from depending on one another, those who control uncertainties hold power, and, unable to correct its errors, it changes only through crisis.What it has shownLe phénomène bureaucratique (1963; English 1964) rests on two case studies, a clerical agency and a state industrial monopoly. L'acteur et le système (1977; English 1980) is theoretical.Who disputes itSocietal effect and comparative business systems: D'Iribarne argues that national logics of conduct, such as a French logic of honor, explain differences that Crozier attributed to power games.The French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis) in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Japanese-firm literature1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThe large Japanese firm coordinates operating decisions through horizontal information sharing among semi-autonomous shops and uses its ranking hierarchy mainly as an incentive scheme (Aoki). It creates knowledge through middle-up-down management (Nonaka and Takeuchi).What it has shownAoki (1986) is a formal model. Lincoln, Hanada, and McBride (1986) compared 51 Japanese and 55 United States manufacturing plants, and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) rest on case studies, chiefly of Japanese firms. Fruin (1994) found the enterprise system defined at three levels.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads shop-floor delegation as control: Sewell and Wilkinson argue that just-in-time and total quality regimes delegate tactical responsibility while centralizing strategic control.The Japanese-firm literature in The Schools of Organization DesignThe Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools1960s to 2000sWhat it claimsThe Scandinavian program sought democracy at work through field experiments with semi-autonomous groups, then through democratic dialogue. The Dutch school's design theory turns complex organizations with simple jobs into simple organizations with complex jobs.What it has shownEmery and Thorsrud reported field experiments in Norwegian industry; Gustavsen (1992) records that they spread less than hoped, his reason for turning to dialogue. Berggren studied work organization in the Swedish auto industry. The Dutch work rests on design cases and argument.Who disputes itThe Japanese-firm literature: defenders of the Toyota system hold that standardized work with employee participation learns faster; Berggren reports Swedish long-cycle plants matching a line plant on productivity.The Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools in The Schools of Organization DesignConfiguration theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructures cluster into a small number of internally coherent configurations whose elements reinforce one another, so organizations move between a few types in large jumps, not small steps. Mintzberg's five configurations each rest on one coordinating mechanism.What it has shownDoty, Glick, and Huber (1993) found that fit to Miles and Snow's ideal types predicted effectiveness while fit to Mintzberg's did not. A meta-analysis of 40 tests (Ketchen and colleagues 1997) found that configuration partly explains performance, more so with broad definitions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson counters that most organizations sit at intermediate points on a continuum of fits, not in a few configurations, and that studies over time find mostly incremental change.Configuration theory in The Schools of Organization DesignInformation processing1970s to the presentWhat it claimsThe more uncertain the task, the more information must be processed during its execution. An organization either reduces that need, through slack resources or self-contained tasks, or raises its capacity, through vertical information systems or lateral relations up to the matrix.What it has shownGalbraith (1973, 1974) built the framework from cases and from Simon's theory of bounded rationality, and Tushman and Nadler (1978) set it out as an integrating concept for design. Daft and Lengel (1986) argued that structure must reduce equivocality as well as supply data.Who disputes itThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view: Ocasio holds that firm behavior results from how the firm channels and distributes attention, so structure governs where attention goes, not only how much is processed.Information processing in The Schools of Organization DesignLabor process and critical theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is above all a system of control over labor. Braverman argued that management deskills work by separating conception from execution; Edwards traced a sequence from simple control by the boss to technical control through machines to bureaucratic control through rules.What it has shownHistorical and theoretical (Braverman 1974; Edwards 1979). Delbridge (1995), observing a Japanese-owned plant in England, found that just-in-time and total quality regimes combined the control of labor with management's economic goals more completely than piece rates had.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: Adler argues that labor process theory ignores the progressive socialization of the labor process, which drives long-term skill upgrading, and disputes deskilling as the trend.Labor process and critical theory in The Schools of Organization DesignStrategic choice1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is the outcome of choices by those with power in the organization, who decide on strategic action, including the structural form, the manipulation of environmental features, and the performance standards to be met. Context constrains but does not determine structure.What it has shownLargely conceptual: Child (1972) built the argument from gaps in contingency findings, and the empirical case rests mostly on the modest share of structural variance contingencies explain. A 2026 review of 42 studies finds upper echelons theory their main theoretical anchor.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson replies that organizations mostly adopt the structures their contingencies dictate, to avoid the loss of performance misfit brings, so choice over structure is at most limited.Strategic choice in The Schools of Organization DesignThe German codetermination literature1970s to the presentWhat it claimsWorks councils and employee board seats form a structural layer through which coordination can become negotiation between management and employees. Defenders argue that it supports long-term employment, training, and cooperation; critics, that it weakens shareholder control.What it has shownJäger, Schoefer, and Heining (2021) found board-level codetermination left wages unchanged and, if anything, raised capital formation. Jirjahn (2011) reports studies pointing to positive works council effects; a meta-analysis found codetermination laws tied to lower productivity.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Gorton and Schmid) found that firms with equal employee and shareholder representation did worse for their shareholders than firms with one-third employee representation.The German codetermination literature in The Schools of Organization DesignOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities1976 to the presentWhat it claimsDesign is the joint choice of who holds which decision rights, how performance is measured, and how it is rewarded. Rights should be placed where the specific knowledge lies, formal authority differs from real authority, and practices are complements that pay off in clusters.What it has shownIchniowski, Shaw, and Prennushi (1997) found, on 36 steel finishing lines, that lines using a set of innovative work practices achieved substantially higher productivity, consistent with complementarities. Bloom and colleagues found more decentralization where trust was higher.Who disputes itGhoshal argued that management research has shaped managers' worldview with ideologically inspired amoral theories, built on a scientific model that excludes human intentionality and so denies moral considerations.Organizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities in The Schools of Organization DesignInstitutional theory1977 to the presentWhat it claimsFormal structures are often adopted because they are legitimate in the organization's field, as rationalized myths, and then decoupled from the work done. Organizations in a field grow alike through coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, whether or not it is efficient.What it has shownTolbert and Zucker (1983) found that city characteristics predicted early but not later adoption of civil service reform, which they read as institutionalization. Palmer, Jennings, and Zhou (1993) found support for institutional and economic accounts of late M-form adoption.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Kraatz and Zajac found little support for neoinstitutional predictions in 631 liberal arts colleges, which grew less alike; the change they studied was curricular, not structural.Institutional theory in The Schools of Organization DesignPopulation ecology1977 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations face strong structural inertia, because selection favors the reliability and accountability of stable structures. Change in a population's forms comes mainly from founding and failure, not adaptation, and changing core features resets the liability of newness.What it has shownAmburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993) found that the effects of change on the hazard of failure vary by type of change and over time, and that rates of change depend on how often and how recently an organization has changed. Carroll and Hannan (2000) set out the program's methods.Who disputes itFor structural contingency theory, Donaldson argues that ecology understates managers' capacity to adapt structure.Population ecology in The Schools of Organization DesignResource dependence1978 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations depend on outside parties for critical resources, and structure follows the management of that dependence: units that cope with critical dependencies gain power, and boundaries are redrawn through cooptation, joint ventures, and mergers to absorb constraint.What it has shownPfeffer and Salancik (1978) assembled studies of boards, mergers, and joint ventures. A meta-analysis of 157 tests (Drees and Heugens 2013) corroborated the main prediction: organizations meet resource dependencies with interorganizational arrangements that raise their autonomy.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis explains boundaries by efficiency; resource dependence, by power and constraint.Resource dependence in The Schools of Organization DesignThe business-groups literature1978 to the presentWhat it claimsGroups of legally independent firms bound by ownership and social ties are a durable form of their own, neither one firm nor a market. Where institutions function poorly, groups can benefit member firms and can destroy value; they are sometimes paragons, sometimes parasites.What it has shownKhanna and Palepu (2000) found that affiliates of the most diversified Indian groups outperformed unaffiliated firms. A meta-analysis of 141 studies (Carney and colleagues 2011) found that affiliation lowers performance in general, less so where institutions are underdeveloped.Who disputes itOrganizational economics: agency writers read pyramids and cross-holdings as devices that separate control from ownership; Almeida and Wolfenzon offer a financing rationale for pyramids instead.The business-groups literature in The Schools of Organization DesignScandinavian institutionalism1980s to the presentWhat it claimsIdeas of organizing do not diffuse unchanged; they travel and are translated as they are adopted, so a form taken up in one place is not the same form elsewhere. Organizations can also be built of organizations (meta-organizations), which behave differently.What it has shownA discussion paper by Czarniawska and Joerges (1995) contrasts the diffusion of ideas with their translation, drawing on examples such as Swedish municipal reform; the work on meta-organizations (Ahrne and Brunsson 2008) is conceptual.Who disputes itInstitutional theory can read the same processes, seen from a translocal view, as institutional isomorphism, though translation holds that each adopter modifies an idea, so an institution re-created elsewhere is new.Scandinavian institutionalism in The Schools of Organization DesignSocietal effect and comparative business systems1980s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms matched on size, technology, and industry differ systematically by country, because how a society educates, trains, recruits, and promotes its workforce, and its industrial relations, shape how work is divided and supervised, so structure is partly a national product.What it has shownMaurice, Sorge, and Warner (1980) compared closely matched manufacturing units in France, West Germany, and Great Britain and found more pervasive differences in their organization than usually recognized. Whitley (1999) set out a comparative account of business systems.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory stresses culture-free elements of structure; matched comparisons find nationally different shapes of organization.Societal effect and comparative business systems in The Schools of Organization DesignThe network perspective on organizations1985 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations and their members are nodes joined by ties, and the pattern of ties shapes what they can do. Economic action is embedded in networks of personal relations (Granovetter 1985), and network forms are a distinct form, not a hybrid of market and hierarchy (Powell 1990).What it has shownPodolny and Page (1998) review the research and find that network forms foster learning, confer status and legitimacy, bring economic benefits, help manage resource dependencies, and give employees considerable autonomy, and they ask for attention to networks' dysfunctions.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics: Williamson treats the hybrid as a third generic form between market and hierarchy; for Powell, network forms are a distinct form, not a mix of the two.The network perspective on organizations in The Schools of Organization DesignComputational organization design and search1990s to the presentWhat it claimsDesign choices interact, so design space is a rugged landscape with many local peaks, and structure affects how well an organization searches it. Decentralizing interdependent decisions can trap units on poor peaks; temporary decentralization, then reintegration, can help.What it has shownMostly simulation, with one field test: Csaszar (2012), with more than 150,000 stock-picking decisions by 609 mutual funds, found that decision-making structure affects the number of initiatives pursued and the omission and commission errors made.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it disputes structural contingency theory, whose bivariate fit, its simulations show, cannot capture how the best design depends on interactions among choices.Computational organization design and search in The Schools of Organization DesignThe new-forms debate1990s to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations must solve four universal problems (dividing tasks, allocating them, providing rewards, and providing information), and a form is new when it solves them in new ways. Self-managing organizations radically decentralize authority; skeptics hold hierarchy reappears.What it has shownFoss (2003) traced the rise and partial reversal of Oticon's spaghetti organization to the problem of selective intervention. A meta-analysis of 54 studies of 13,914 teams (Greer and colleagues 2018) found that hierarchy within teams on net slightly lowers team performance.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: removing formal structure leaves informal elites whose power is unaccountable (Freeman), and democratic and network organizations are much less hierarchy-free than their labels suggest.The new-forms debate in The Schools of Organization DesignThe algorithmic-management literature2015 to the presentWhat it claimsSoftware does much of the directing, evaluating, and disciplining that managers and rules once did. Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin (2020) call algorithmic control a new contested terrain; Puranam (2021) treats dividing decisions between people and machines as a design problem.What it has shownMostly qualitative field studies of gig work. Wood and colleagues (2019), with 107 interviews in six countries and 679 survey respondents, found that algorithmic management tends to give remote gig workers flexibility and autonomy, but also low pay, isolation, and overwork.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads control at work as contested terrain; Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin take up that view but argue that algorithmic control is distinct from earlier forms.The algorithmic-management literature in The Schools of Organization DesignFunctional structureOrigin: 1911 to 1937.Family: Classical hierarchies.Line and staffOrigin: 1916 to 1943.Family: Classical hierarchies.Multidivisional (M-form) by productOrigin: 1920s practice; named and analyzed 1962 to 1975.Family: Divisionalized forms.Machine bureaucracyOrigin: 1922 (Weber); 1979 (Mintzberg).Family: Classical hierarchies.Divisional by customer or market segmentOrigin: 1937; 2005.Family: Divisionalized forms.Matrix organizationOrigin: 1950s to 1960s practice; analyzed 1971 to 1977.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Co-determined organizationOrigin: 1951 to 1976 (the laws); 1984 to 2022 (the main studies).Family: Forms from other traditions.Socio-technical autonomous work groupsOrigin: 1951 to 1965.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Stratified hierarchy (requisite organization)Origin: 1951 to 1989.Family: Classical hierarchies.Cooperative organizationOrigin: 1958 to 1999.Family: Forms from other traditions.Linking-pin organization (System 4)Origin: 1961 to 1967.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Divisional by regionOrigin: 1962 to 1972.Family: Divisionalized forms.Adhocracy (innovative organization)Origin: 1968 to 1979.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.J-form (the Japanese firm)Origin: 1968 to 1990.Family: Forms from other traditions.Professional bureaucracyOrigin: 1968 to 1979.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Holding company (H-form)Origin: 1972 to 1975; 1987.Family: Divisionalized forms.Ambidextrous organizationOrigin: 1976 to 2004.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Simple structureOrigin: 1979.Family: Classical hierarchies.Hybrid structureOrigin: 1980 to the present.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Missionary (ideological) organizationOrigin: 1980 to 1989.Family: Ideological forms.Network, modular, and virtual organizationOrigin: 1986 to 1990.Family: Network and market-like forms.Transnational and multidimensional organizationOrigin: 1987 to 1989.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Business group (keiretsu, chaebol, family house)Origin: 1988 to 2007.Family: Forms from other traditions.Shamrock organizationOrigin: 1988 to 1989.Family: Network and market-like forms.Federal organizationOrigin: 1989 to 1992.Family: Network and market-like forms.Self-managing organization (less-hierarchical forms)Origin: 1989 to 2017.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Boundaryless organizationOrigin: 1990 to 1995.Family: Network and market-like forms.Front-back organizationOrigin: 1990s to 2007.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Professional partnership (P2 form)Origin: 1990.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.The corporate center and shared servicesOrigin: 1991 to 2000.Family: Divisionalized forms.Internal market organizationOrigin: 1993 to 1994.Family: Network and market-like forms.Process (horizontal) organizationOrigin: 1993 to 1999.Family: Lateral and multidimensional forms.Cellular organizationOrigin: 1994 to 1997.Family: Network and market-like forms.Hypertext organizationOrigin: 1994 to 1995.Family: Forms from other traditions.Team-based organizationOrigin: 1995.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.Project-based organizationOrigin: 2000 to 2006.Family: Professional, project, and knowledge forms.Agile at scaleOrigin: 2001 to 2016.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Distributed (all-remote) organizationOrigin: 2002 to 2021.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Open-source and community-based organizationOrigin: 2002 to 2007.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Algorithmically managed organizationOrigin: 2015 to 2020.Family: Contemporary and emerging forms.Team of teamsOrigin: 2015.Family: Team-based and self-managing forms.
The schools by first year
- Bureaucracy and its critics1900s to 1950s, revived from the 1990sWhat it claimsWeber held that rational-legal authority exercised through an office hierarchy, written rules, trained officials, and promotion by qualification is technically superior in precision, speed, and reliability. Critics studied its unintended consequences, Michels's iron law sharpest.What it has shownMerton (1940) argued, with no test, that rules can turn from means into ends; case studies followed. The Aston group concluded that the type's dimensions vary independently, and Wagner's meta-analysis (2021) found that many of their interrelationships have weakened.Who disputes itHuman relations and System 4 sets the costs of impersonal rules to motivation and cooperation against the technical superiority Weber stresses.
- Classical administration1910s to 1940s, and in German to the 1970sWhat it claimsThere are general principles of administration, among them division of work, unity of command, a scalar chain of authority, and a limited span of control, and a structure built to them will be efficient in most settings. Taylor added that planners should set work methods.What it has shownThe school offered reasoning and experience, not tests. Woodward (1965) found that the spans and levels of the more successful firms in her sample differed by production system, and Simon (1946) showed that the principles come in pairs that point in opposite directions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory found that the structure of successful firms varies with technology and environment, where classical writers treat their principles as general.
- Human relations and System 41920s to 1960sWhat it claimsOutput depends on the social relations of work, the norms of informal groups, and the style of supervision as much as on formal design. Likert's System 4, overlapping work groups joined by linking-pin managers under participative management, outperforms authoritative systems.What it has shownThe founding evidence is the Hawthorne studies, which later reanalyses dispute (Carey 1967; Levitt and List 2011). Likert's support came largely from his own institute's surveys. Wagner (1994) found participation's effects on performance and satisfaction significant but small.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads human relations as a technique of managerial control rather than a change in the distribution of power.
- Transaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis1937, then the 1970s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms exist, and are organized as they are, to economize on transaction costs. Hierarchy replaces the market when assets are specific, uncertainty is high, and exchange is frequent, and the multidivisional form should outperform the functional form in large, diversified firms.What it has shownArmour and Teece (1978) found, in United States petroleum firms from 1955 to 1973, a positive relationship between the multidivisional form and profitability while the form was spreading, but not once an equilibrium in organizational form was reached.Who disputes itThe network perspective on organizations: Granovetter argued that the theory undersocializes economic action, which is embedded in networks of personal relations that also produce trust and order.
- The Carnegie school and the attention-based view1940s to the presentWhat it claimsPeople in organizations are boundedly rational, so structure matters because it sets the premises of their decisions and channels their attention: who sees which problems, which goals they pursue, and which routines they follow. Ocasio makes structure distribute attention.What it has shownMarch and Simon (1958) drew propositions from the existing literature, and Cyert and March (1963) added process models and simulations. Two studies show hierarchy shaping what is sent up as well as what is chosen (Reitzig and Maciejovsky 2015; Keum and See 2017).Who disputes itOrganizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities models a principal and agents with defined objectives; the Carnegie school, firms as coalitions with unresolved goal conflict.
- Socio-technical systems1950s to 1980sWhat it claimsAn organization is a social system and a technical system that must be designed together. The same technology admits more than one way of organizing work, and groups that own a whole task and control its variances at the source perform better and are more satisfied.What it has shownTrist and Bamforth (1951) found that longwall mechanization broke up self-regulating work groups. A review of 134 experiments found them extremely successful overall, and Stewart (2006) linked team autonomy to performance; studies of socialist brigades and Volkswagen qualify it.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory: Kelly argued that labor intensification, not joint optimization, accounts for what socio-technical redesign achieved, and that the part of pay incentives was seriously underestimated.
- The economics of the labor-managed firm and of enterprise ownership1958 to the presentWhat it claimsA firm run by its workers behaves differently from one run for investors: Ward modeled the Yugoslav-style firm as maximizing income per worker. Hansmann argued that an ownership form's success depends on the balance between the costs of market contracting and of ownership.What it has shownBurdín (2014) found a 29 percent lower hazard of dissolution for Uruguayan worker-managed firms than for conventional ones, and Fakhfakh, Pérotin, and Gago (2012) found French labor-managed firms as productive or more so in every industry studied.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Jensen and Meckling) contrasts the labor-managed firm, in which tradable residual claims are legally prohibited, with cooperatives and partnerships that arise out of voluntary contracting.
- Modularity and the mirroring hypothesis1960s to the presentWhat it claimsComplex systems are built of nearly decomposable parts, and an organization's structure tends to mirror the architecture of what it makes: modular products allow loosely coupled organizations, and tightly coupled products need tightly coupled teams. Conway's law runs in reverse.What it has shownColfer and Baldwin (2016) review the empirical studies and report both support and principled exceptions. Direct tests point both ways: MacCormack, Baldwin, and Rusnak (2012) found open source products more modular than their commercial pairs; dynamic components break the mirror.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it answers information processing, which meets the coordination load inside the organization; mirroring writers locate it in the product's architecture.
- Strategy and structure1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsStructure follows strategy: firms that diversify by product or geography outgrow the centralized functional structure and, after a lag and usually a crisis, adopt divisions. Chandler drew this from the histories of DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Sears.What it has shownChandler (1962) is comparative business history of four firms set against a wider survey. Rumelt (1974) related diversification and structure to performance, and Egelhoff (1988), with 34 multinationals, found some of Stopford and Wells's relationships supported and others not.Who disputes itInstitutional theory: in Fligstein's model divisions spread with a product-related or unrelated strategy, presidents from sales or finance, and other firms in the industry changing; strategy was one of three.
- Structural contingency theory1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThere is no one best structure. Performance depends on fit between structure and contingencies such as environment, technology, size, and strategy, on an open-system view of the organization. Drazin and Van de Ven separate fit as selection, interaction, and systems.What it has shownBurns and Stalker, Woodward, and the Aston group related structure to context; Drazin and Van de Ven (1985) supported selection and systems fit only. Pennings (1975) found that fit did not explain effectiveness; Schoonhoven (1981) found traditional hypotheses unsupported.Who disputes itStrategic choice: Child argued that contingency theory explains structure by the constraints of context and leaves out the political process by which power-holders choose strategic action, structural forms included.
- The French bureaucratic school (strategic analysis)1960s to 1980sWhat it claimsA bureaucracy is a system of power relations organized around zones of uncertainty. Impersonal rules and centralization protect members from depending on one another, those who control uncertainties hold power, and, unable to correct its errors, it changes only through crisis.What it has shownLe phénomène bureaucratique (1963; English 1964) rests on two case studies, a clerical agency and a state industrial monopoly. L'acteur et le système (1977; English 1980) is theoretical.Who disputes itSocietal effect and comparative business systems: D'Iribarne argues that national logics of conduct, such as a French logic of honor, explain differences that Crozier attributed to power games.
- The Japanese-firm literature1960s to the presentWhat it claimsThe large Japanese firm coordinates operating decisions through horizontal information sharing among semi-autonomous shops and uses its ranking hierarchy mainly as an incentive scheme (Aoki). It creates knowledge through middle-up-down management (Nonaka and Takeuchi).What it has shownAoki (1986) is a formal model. Lincoln, Hanada, and McBride (1986) compared 51 Japanese and 55 United States manufacturing plants, and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) rest on case studies, chiefly of Japanese firms. Fruin (1994) found the enterprise system defined at three levels.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads shop-floor delegation as control: Sewell and Wilkinson argue that just-in-time and total quality regimes delegate tactical responsibility while centralizing strategic control.
- The Scandinavian and Dutch socio-technical schools1960s to 2000sWhat it claimsThe Scandinavian program sought democracy at work through field experiments with semi-autonomous groups, then through democratic dialogue. The Dutch school's design theory turns complex organizations with simple jobs into simple organizations with complex jobs.What it has shownEmery and Thorsrud reported field experiments in Norwegian industry; Gustavsen (1992) records that they spread less than hoped, his reason for turning to dialogue. Berggren studied work organization in the Swedish auto industry. The Dutch work rests on design cases and argument.Who disputes itThe Japanese-firm literature: defenders of the Toyota system hold that standardized work with employee participation learns faster; Berggren reports Swedish long-cycle plants matching a line plant on productivity.
- Configuration theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructures cluster into a small number of internally coherent configurations whose elements reinforce one another, so organizations move between a few types in large jumps, not small steps. Mintzberg's five configurations each rest on one coordinating mechanism.What it has shownDoty, Glick, and Huber (1993) found that fit to Miles and Snow's ideal types predicted effectiveness while fit to Mintzberg's did not. A meta-analysis of 40 tests (Ketchen and colleagues 1997) found that configuration partly explains performance, more so with broad definitions.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson counters that most organizations sit at intermediate points on a continuum of fits, not in a few configurations, and that studies over time find mostly incremental change.
- Information processing1970s to the presentWhat it claimsThe more uncertain the task, the more information must be processed during its execution. An organization either reduces that need, through slack resources or self-contained tasks, or raises its capacity, through vertical information systems or lateral relations up to the matrix.What it has shownGalbraith (1973, 1974) built the framework from cases and from Simon's theory of bounded rationality, and Tushman and Nadler (1978) set it out as an integrating concept for design. Daft and Lengel (1986) argued that structure must reduce equivocality as well as supply data.Who disputes itThe Carnegie school and the attention-based view: Ocasio holds that firm behavior results from how the firm channels and distributes attention, so structure governs where attention goes, not only how much is processed.
- Labor process and critical theory1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is above all a system of control over labor. Braverman argued that management deskills work by separating conception from execution; Edwards traced a sequence from simple control by the boss to technical control through machines to bureaucratic control through rules.What it has shownHistorical and theoretical (Braverman 1974; Edwards 1979). Delbridge (1995), observing a Japanese-owned plant in England, found that just-in-time and total quality regimes combined the control of labor with management's economic goals more completely than piece rates had.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: Adler argues that labor process theory ignores the progressive socialization of the labor process, which drives long-term skill upgrading, and disputes deskilling as the trend.
- Strategic choice1970s to the presentWhat it claimsStructure is the outcome of choices by those with power in the organization, who decide on strategic action, including the structural form, the manipulation of environmental features, and the performance standards to be met. Context constrains but does not determine structure.What it has shownLargely conceptual: Child (1972) built the argument from gaps in contingency findings, and the empirical case rests mostly on the modest share of structural variance contingencies explain. A 2026 review of 42 studies finds upper echelons theory their main theoretical anchor.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Donaldson replies that organizations mostly adopt the structures their contingencies dictate, to avoid the loss of performance misfit brings, so choice over structure is at most limited.
- The German codetermination literature1970s to the presentWhat it claimsWorks councils and employee board seats form a structural layer through which coordination can become negotiation between management and employees. Defenders argue that it supports long-term employment, training, and cooperation; critics, that it weakens shareholder control.What it has shownJäger, Schoefer, and Heining (2021) found board-level codetermination left wages unchanged and, if anything, raised capital formation. Jirjahn (2011) reports studies pointing to positive works council effects; a meta-analysis found codetermination laws tied to lower productivity.Who disputes itOrganizational economics (Gorton and Schmid) found that firms with equal employee and shareholder representation did worse for their shareholders than firms with one-third employee representation.
- Organizational economics: decision rights, authority, and complementarities1976 to the presentWhat it claimsDesign is the joint choice of who holds which decision rights, how performance is measured, and how it is rewarded. Rights should be placed where the specific knowledge lies, formal authority differs from real authority, and practices are complements that pay off in clusters.What it has shownIchniowski, Shaw, and Prennushi (1997) found, on 36 steel finishing lines, that lines using a set of innovative work practices achieved substantially higher productivity, consistent with complementarities. Bloom and colleagues found more decentralization where trust was higher.Who disputes itGhoshal argued that management research has shaped managers' worldview with ideologically inspired amoral theories, built on a scientific model that excludes human intentionality and so denies moral considerations.
- Institutional theory1977 to the presentWhat it claimsFormal structures are often adopted because they are legitimate in the organization's field, as rationalized myths, and then decoupled from the work done. Organizations in a field grow alike through coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, whether or not it is efficient.What it has shownTolbert and Zucker (1983) found that city characteristics predicted early but not later adoption of civil service reform, which they read as institutionalization. Palmer, Jennings, and Zhou (1993) found support for institutional and economic accounts of late M-form adoption.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory: Kraatz and Zajac found little support for neoinstitutional predictions in 631 liberal arts colleges, which grew less alike; the change they studied was curricular, not structural.
- Population ecology1977 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations face strong structural inertia, because selection favors the reliability and accountability of stable structures. Change in a population's forms comes mainly from founding and failure, not adaptation, and changing core features resets the liability of newness.What it has shownAmburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993) found that the effects of change on the hazard of failure vary by type of change and over time, and that rates of change depend on how often and how recently an organization has changed. Carroll and Hannan (2000) set out the program's methods.Who disputes itFor structural contingency theory, Donaldson argues that ecology understates managers' capacity to adapt structure.
- Resource dependence1978 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations depend on outside parties for critical resources, and structure follows the management of that dependence: units that cope with critical dependencies gain power, and boundaries are redrawn through cooptation, joint ventures, and mergers to absorb constraint.What it has shownPfeffer and Salancik (1978) assembled studies of boards, mergers, and joint ventures. A meta-analysis of 157 tests (Drees and Heugens 2013) corroborated the main prediction: organizations meet resource dependencies with interorganizational arrangements that raise their autonomy.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics and the M-form hypothesis explains boundaries by efficiency; resource dependence, by power and constraint.
- The business-groups literature1978 to the presentWhat it claimsGroups of legally independent firms bound by ownership and social ties are a durable form of their own, neither one firm nor a market. Where institutions function poorly, groups can benefit member firms and can destroy value; they are sometimes paragons, sometimes parasites.What it has shownKhanna and Palepu (2000) found that affiliates of the most diversified Indian groups outperformed unaffiliated firms. A meta-analysis of 141 studies (Carney and colleagues 2011) found that affiliation lowers performance in general, less so where institutions are underdeveloped.Who disputes itOrganizational economics: agency writers read pyramids and cross-holdings as devices that separate control from ownership; Almeida and Wolfenzon offer a financing rationale for pyramids instead.
- Scandinavian institutionalism1980s to the present
- Societal effect and comparative business systems1980s to the presentWhat it claimsFirms matched on size, technology, and industry differ systematically by country, because how a society educates, trains, recruits, and promotes its workforce, and its industrial relations, shape how work is divided and supervised, so structure is partly a national product.What it has shownMaurice, Sorge, and Warner (1980) compared closely matched manufacturing units in France, West Germany, and Great Britain and found more pervasive differences in their organization than usually recognized. Whitley (1999) set out a comparative account of business systems.Who disputes itStructural contingency theory stresses culture-free elements of structure; matched comparisons find nationally different shapes of organization.
- The network perspective on organizations1985 to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations and their members are nodes joined by ties, and the pattern of ties shapes what they can do. Economic action is embedded in networks of personal relations (Granovetter 1985), and network forms are a distinct form, not a hybrid of market and hierarchy (Powell 1990).What it has shownPodolny and Page (1998) review the research and find that network forms foster learning, confer status and legitimacy, bring economic benefits, help manage resource dependencies, and give employees considerable autonomy, and they ask for attention to networks' dysfunctions.Who disputes itTransaction cost economics: Williamson treats the hybrid as a third generic form between market and hierarchy; for Powell, network forms are a distinct form, not a mix of the two.
- Computational organization design and search1990s to the presentWhat it claimsDesign choices interact, so design space is a rugged landscape with many local peaks, and structure affects how well an organization searches it. Decentralizing interdependent decisions can trap units on poor peaks; temporary decentralization, then reintegration, can help.What it has shownMostly simulation, with one field test: Csaszar (2012), with more than 150,000 stock-picking decisions by 609 mutual funds, found that decision-making structure affects the number of initiatives pursued and the omission and commission errors made.Who disputes itNo school in the record disputes it head on; it disputes structural contingency theory, whose bivariate fit, its simulations show, cannot capture how the best design depends on interactions among choices.
- The new-forms debate1990s to the presentWhat it claimsOrganizations must solve four universal problems (dividing tasks, allocating them, providing rewards, and providing information), and a form is new when it solves them in new ways. Self-managing organizations radically decentralize authority; skeptics hold hierarchy reappears.What it has shownFoss (2003) traced the rise and partial reversal of Oticon's spaghetti organization to the problem of selective intervention. A meta-analysis of 54 studies of 13,914 teams (Greer and colleagues 2018) found that hierarchy within teams on net slightly lowers team performance.Who disputes itBureaucracy and its critics: removing formal structure leaves informal elites whose power is unaccountable (Freeman), and democratic and network organizations are much less hierarchy-free than their labels suggest.
- The algorithmic-management literature2015 to the presentWhat it claimsSoftware does much of the directing, evaluating, and disciplining that managers and rules once did. Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin (2020) call algorithmic control a new contested terrain; Puranam (2021) treats dividing decisions between people and machines as a design problem.What it has shownMostly qualitative field studies of gig work. Wood and colleagues (2019), with 107 interviews in six countries and 679 survey respondents, found that algorithmic management tends to give remote gig workers flexibility and autonomy, but also low pay, isolation, and overwork.Who disputes itLabor process and critical theory reads control at work as contested terrain; Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin take up that view but argue that algorithmic control is distinct from earlier forms.
The forms by first year
- Functional structure: 1911 to 1937
- Line and staff: 1916 to 1943
- Multidivisional (M-form) by product: 1920s practice; named and analyzed 1962 to 1975
- Machine bureaucracy: 1922 (Weber); 1979 (Mintzberg)
- Divisional by customer or market segment: 1937; 2005
- Matrix organization: 1950s to 1960s practice; analyzed 1971 to 1977
- Co-determined organization: 1951 to 1976 (the laws); 1984 to 2022 (the main studies)
- Socio-technical autonomous work groups: 1951 to 1965
- Stratified hierarchy (requisite organization): 1951 to 1989
- Cooperative organization: 1958 to 1999
- Linking-pin organization (System 4): 1961 to 1967
- Divisional by region: 1962 to 1972
- Adhocracy (innovative organization): 1968 to 1979
- J-form (the Japanese firm): 1968 to 1990
- Professional bureaucracy: 1968 to 1979
- Holding company (H-form): 1972 to 1975; 1987
- Ambidextrous organization: 1976 to 2004
- Simple structure: 1979
- Hybrid structure: 1980 to the present
- Missionary (ideological) organization: 1980 to 1989
- Network, modular, and virtual organization: 1986 to 1990
- Transnational and multidimensional organization: 1987 to 1989
- Business group (keiretsu, chaebol, family house): 1988 to 2007
- Shamrock organization: 1988 to 1989
- Federal organization: 1989 to 1992
- Self-managing organization (less-hierarchical forms): 1989 to 2017
- Boundaryless organization: 1990 to 1995
- Front-back organization: 1990s to 2007
- Professional partnership (P2 form): 1990
- The corporate center and shared services: 1991 to 2000
- Internal market organization: 1993 to 1994
- Process (horizontal) organization: 1993 to 1999
- Cellular organization: 1994 to 1997
- Hypertext organization: 1994 to 1995
- Team-based organization: 1995
- Project-based organization: 2000 to 2006
- Agile at scale: 2001 to 2016
- Distributed (all-remote) organization: 2002 to 2021
- Open-source and community-based organization: 2002 to 2007
- Algorithmically managed organization: 2015 to 2020
- Team of teams: 2015
Twenty-three of the 29 schools run to the present, and 16 of those began in the 1970s or later. The forms arrive in waves: 14 of the 41 first appear between 1985 and 1994.
Source: Fayol 1949; Weber 1978; Mayo 1933; Trist and Bamforth 1951, an interview-based field study in one industry; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms; Mintzberg 1979; Child 1972a; Coase 1937; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Hannan and Freeman 1977; Galbraith 1973; Jensen and Meckling 1976; Crozier 1963; Emery and Thorsrud 1969; Yoshino 1968; Streeck 1984a; Kellogg and colleagues 2020, a review of earlier research through one theoretical lens, with no new data; Puranam and colleagues 2014, a conceptual argument; Chandler 1962, several independent case histories by a historian; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978; Simon 1946; Maurice and colleagues 1980, a comparison of matched factories in three countries; Levinthal 1997; Simon 1962; Braverman 1974; Hamilton and Biggart 1988, a comparison of three economies by scholars; Ward 1958; Czarniawska and Joerges 1995; Granovetter 1985.
Henry Mintzberg made it one of five configurations in The Structuring of Organizations (1979) and restated it in "Structure in 5's" (1980). It answered how to organize novel, complex work in a dynamic setting, where standardization would kill innovation.
Behind it is the organic management system of Burns and Stalker (1961, a field study of twenty firms). Mintzberg later renamed it the project pioneer, one of four forms he says fit most organizations (2023, 2024).
Where it fits
Mintzberg (1980), a synthesis, and Burton and Obel's (2004) multi-contingency model, whose "ad hoc configuration" is an extreme version of the matrix, carry most cells. Cells are theory unless marked our judgment; works without grade words have no graded study record here. Cells resting on Mintzberg (1980) are limited by Doty, Glick, and Huber's (1993) quantitative test of his types; environment and technology cells, by failed tests of the contingency premise: Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey (1969), a multi-organization comparative survey; Pennings (1975), a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model; Mohr (1971), a quantitative field study of technology and structure. Donaldson (2001) traces these two failures to methodological limitations and reports that later studies of the job unpredictability Mohr studied found positive evidence. Schoonhoven (1981), a quantitative study of hospital operating room suites, found the traditional hypotheses unsupported but more precise, interactive ones better supported.
The adhocracy (innovative organization) against the twelve contingency factors
Each factor at its three levels, Fits, Partial, or Strain; select a row for its reason, sources, and grade.
Select a factor to read its reason, sources, basis, and grade.Size. Mutual adjustment among experts works in small and mid-sized organizations; at large size the number of links outgrows it and standardization creeps back. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg and McHugh 1985.Age. The form depends on continual reorganizing around new projects, and the inertia and formalization that come with age work against it. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Hannan and Freeman 1984; Mintzberg 1980; Toffler 1970; Mintzberg and McHugh 1985. View 1: Young fits, Established fits, Old partial. Inertia and formalization rise with age and work against an organization that reorganizes continually around new projects. Sources: Hannan and Freeman 1984; Mintzberg 1980. View 2: Young fits, Established fits, Old fits. The National Film Board of Canada, a single-project organization tracked across almost four decades, was still in a quest for adhocracy, which we read as an old organization able to keep the form; the abstract does not report whether it attained it. Sources: Mintzberg and McHugh 1985.Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism). Temporary expert teams coordinated by mutual adjustment are built for novel work in a changing environment; in a stable one they spend effort a bureaucracy would save. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burns and Stalker 1961; Burton and Obel 2004; Bennis and Slater 1968; Ciborra 1996; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Sine and colleagues 2006; Pennings 1975; Doty and colleagues 1993. View 1: Stable strain, Shifting partial, Unpredictable fits. Adhocracies are found in complex, dynamic environments, organic systems suit fast technical or market change, and a flexible structure fits a turbulent environment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burns and Stalker 1961; Burton and Obel 2004. View 2: Stable strain, Shifting partial, Unpredictable partial. In a turbulent, emergent sector, new ventures whose founding teams had more formalization, specialization, and administrative intensity outperformed more organic ones, against the Burns and Stalker proposition. Sources: Sine and colleagues 2006.Environmental complexity. Mutual adjustment among experts suits complex, changing work no rulebook can cover; in a simple environment it costs more than it brings. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Pennings 1975.Munificence and hostility. Works disagree: one view holds that hostility calls for less organizational complexity and, at the extreme, a simple, centralized structure, which the adhocracy is not; another found organic structures paying off in hostile environments. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Covin and Slevin 1989; Pennings 1975. View 1: Hostile strain, Neutral partial, Munificent partial. Placed on the fit model's rules, the adhocracy's liaison-heavy design is the opposite of the lower organizational complexity and fast reaction hostility calls for, and of the simple configuration and high centralization extreme hostility calls for. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004. View 2: Hostile fits, Neutral partial, Munificent strain. Among small manufacturers, organic structures went with better performance in hostile environments and mechanistic ones in benign environments. Sources: Covin and Slevin 1989.Diversity of products and markets. Fusing experts into project teams works within one business or across related ones; mutual adjustment cannot span unrelated businesses. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Strategy type. Burton and Obel name the ad hoc configuration, with the simple and the matrix, for a prospector, and a defender's high formalization and centralization are what the ad hoc configuration lacks by design. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Sine and colleagues 2006; Lee 2022. View 1: Defender (exploitation) strain, Analyzer (exploitation and exploration) partial, Prospector (exploration) fits. Burton and Obel name the ad hoc configuration, with the simple and the matrix, for a prospector, and a defender's high formalization and centralization are what the ad hoc configuration lacks by design. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980. View 2: Defender (exploitation) strain, Analyzer (exploitation and exploration) partial, Prospector (exploration) partial. In game development start-ups a flatter hierarchy improved ideation and creative success but led to haphazard execution and commercial failure, and adding a few levels of managers helped start-ups reach commercial success and survive; Internet start-ups with more formalized, specialized, and administratively intense founding teams outperformed more organic ones, so even exploring firms gain from structure the adhocracy lacks. Sources: Sine and colleagues 2006; Lee 2022.Technology and routineness. Mutual adjustment among experts is the answer to work with no known procedure, and Burton and Obel say an ad hoc configuration cannot operate if technology is very routine, though Mintzberg pairs adhocracy with automated technical systems. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980; Perrow 1967; Doty and colleagues 1993; Hickson and colleagues 1969; Mohr 1971. View 1: Routine strain, Mixed partial, Nonroutine fits. Burton and Obel say an ad hoc configuration cannot operate if technology is very routine, and mutual adjustment among experts is the answer to work with no known procedure. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Perrow 1967. View 2: Routine partial, Mixed partial, Nonroutine fits. Mintzberg associates adhocracies with highly sophisticated and automated technical systems, which puts the form beside automated, routine production rather than ruling it out there. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Interdependence. Mutual adjustment is Thompson's mechanism for reciprocal interdependence; using it where standards or plans would do pays the highest coordination cost for no gain. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Thompson 1967; Mintzberg 1980.Knowledge intensity and professionalization. Fusing experts from different specialties into project teams needs extensive formal training and little formalization; with work learned on the job there are no experts to fuse. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Global integration pressure. No work read ties the adhocracy to integration pressure across countries, so this factor gives no reason for or against. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Local responsiveness pressure. Disparate forces in the environment encourage selective decentralization to differentiated work constellations and so the adhocracy; if many countries' differing demands are such forces, as the machine-bureaucracy and simple-structure cells read them, strong responsiveness pressure suits this form. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.
With the five contested cells counted by their first view, the 36 settings show Fits at 12, Partial at 16, and Strain at 8. Judgment is the basis of five of the twelve cells.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg and McHugh 1985, one case study; Hannan and Freeman 1984; Toffler 1970; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms; Bennis and Slater 1968; Ciborra 1996, one case study; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Sine and colleagues 2006, a quantitative study of new ventures in one sector; Pennings 1975, a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model; Doty and colleagues 1993, a quantitative test across a sample of organizations; Covin and Slevin 1989, a survey of 161 small manufacturers; Lee 2022, a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry; Perrow 1967; Hickson and colleagues 1969, a multi-organization comparative survey; Mohr 1971, a quantitative field study of technology and structure; Thompson 1967.
Your own situation against the adhocracy (innovative organization)
Set any factor to outline its cell in the strip above; the lines under the switches give the counts, the form's place among the 41, and the misfit rules that fire.
Size
Age
Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism)
Environmental complexity
Munificence and hostility
Diversity of products and markets
Strategy type
Technology and routineness
Interdependence
Knowledge intensity and professionalization
Global integration pressure
Local responsiveness pressure
Set: 0 of 12 factors. Fits on 0, Partial on 0, Strain on 0, Contested on 0.
Its place in the explorer's rankingEvery factor is on Any: all 41 forms tie, and the explorer lists them alphabetically.1st of 411st of 41, tied with one other1st of 41, tied with 0 othersSunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41Sunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41, tied with one otherSunk by a misfit rule: 1st of 41, tied with 0 others
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A defender without written standards. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A defender with authority spread wide. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): An analyzer whose stable core has no standards. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980.
- Sinks the form: An analyzer with authority spread wide. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A large organization with few written rules. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): Routine work without written standards. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Trist and colleagues 1963; Pasmore and colleagues 1982; Beekun 1989; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; against it, Child and Mansfield 1972.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): Few written rules in a stable environment. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): Reactor: a defender's strategy on a loose structure. Disputed: Miles and Snow 1978; Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and colleagues 2015b; Snow and Hrebiniak 1980.
Ranking rule: by count of Fits on the factors the reader has set, then fewest Strains, then alphabetical; a fired misfit rule that no source disputes sinks the form to the bottom when every level of the form's profile meets it, a disputed one, or one that meets the form only through one end of a spanned level, one view of a contested profile cell, or one part of a two-part form, is flagged on the row (with both views where it is disputed), and a misfit between two of the reader's own settings is shown once above the list; a contested cell counts only where its views agree at the reader's level, and otherwise shows as Contested; factors on "Any" count for nothing; with every factor on "Any" the list is alphabetical and says so.
Open these settings in the explorer
The misfit rules that can fire for this form
- A defender without written standards fires when Strategy type at Defender (exploitation): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- A defender with authority spread wide fires when Strategy type at Defender (exploitation): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- An analyzer whose stable core has no standards fires when Strategy type at Analyzer (exploitation and exploration): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980.
- An analyzer with authority spread wide fires when Strategy type at Analyzer (exploitation and exploration): sinks the form. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
- A large organization with few written rules fires when Size at Large: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Routine work without written standards fires when Technology and routineness at Routine: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Trist and colleagues 1963; Pasmore and colleagues 1982; Beekun 1989; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; against it, Child and Mansfield 1972.
- Few written rules in a stable environment fires when Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism) at Stable: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Reactor: a defender's strategy on a loose structure fires when Strategy type at Defender (exploitation): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Miles and Snow 1978; Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and colleagues 2015b; Snow and Hrebiniak 1980.
Of the 39 contingency misfit rules, eight can fire for this form: one would sink it and seven would only flag it.
Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2020a.
- Size. Our judgment: fits small and medium, partial large, where links outgrow mutual adjustment. The low level rests only on one small firm in Burton and Obel (2004).
- Age. Contested. Fits young and established, partial old, since inertia and formalization rise with age (Hannan and Freeman 1984; Mintzberg 1980). Against this, the National Film Board of Canada, tracked across almost four decades, was still in a quest for adhocracy (Mintzberg and McHugh 1985, one case study), its outcome unreported: fits old, our reading.
- Environmental uncertainty. Contested. Strain stable, partial shifting, fits unpredictable (Mintzberg 1980; Burns and Stalker 1961, a field study of twenty firms, on our reading not a test of this form; Burton and Obel 2004); the partial at shifting is our reading against the project-based form. Sine and colleagues (2006), a quantitative study of new ventures in one sector, found more formal founding teams outperforming there: partial unpredictable.
- Environmental complexity. Strain simple, partial moderate, fits complex (Mintzberg 1980).
- Munificence and hostility. Our judgment, contested. Burton and Obel's (2004) high-hostility rules lower centralization and keep formalization low, but also lower organizational complexity and at the extreme want a simple, centralized structure; on those premises: strain hostile, partial elsewhere. Covin and Slevin (1989), a survey of 161 small manufacturers, found organic structures performing better in hostile environments and mechanistic ones in benign: fits hostile, strain munificent.
- Diversity. Our judgment, premised on mutual adjustment (Mintzberg 1980): fits a single business, partial related, strain unrelated.
- Strategy. Contested. Burton and Obel (2004) name the ad hoc configuration, with the simple and the matrix, for a prospector: fits prospector, partial analyzer, strain defender (our placement on their defender rule). Lee (2022), a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry, found a flatter hierarchy improving creative success but bringing haphazard execution and commercial failure; with Sine and colleagues (2006), and reading start-ups as prospectors (our judgment): partial prospector.
- Technology. Contested. Burton and Obel (2004) say an ad hoc configuration cannot operate if technology is very routine (with Perrow 1967): strain routine, partial mixed, fits nonroutine. Mintzberg (1980) says adhocracies are often associated with highly sophisticated and automated technical systems; reading an automated core as routine work is our judgment: partial routine.
- Interdependence. Strain pooled, partial sequential, fits reciprocal (Thompson 1967; Mintzberg 1980).
- Knowledge intensity. Strain low, partial moderate, fits high (Mintzberg 1980).
- Global integration pressure. Our judgment: partial throughout; no work read ties the form to it.
- Local responsiveness pressure. Our judgment: fits high, partial below, premised on many countries' demands being the disparate forces Mintzberg (1980) says encourage the adhocracy.
What it does well
Mutual adjustment among experts handles work no procedure covers, in complex, changing settings (Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; theory).
On theory or our judgment, the explorer names it a relief for five symptoms, among them rivals moving first and a rulebook that cannot keep up. The second is disputed: NUMMI's metaroutines (Adler, Goldoftas, and Levine 1999, one case study of a single plant) and the incident command system (Bigley and Roberts 2001, one inductive case study) joined rules with flexibility, so rules can be redesigned instead.
What it costs
Thompson (1967) ranks standardization, plan, and mutual adjustment in rising cost, and the adhocracy runs nearly everything on the last and dearest (theory).
It gives up unity of command: people answer to more than one line (Mintzberg 1980).
It depends on trained experts; with work learned on the job there are none to fuse (Mintzberg 1980).
How it fails
How the adhocracy (innovative organization) fails, and the coordination failures behind it
The entry's failure modes at the left, each tied to the Coordination Failures patterns it names at the right; a pattern links its entry there.
How many ties the failure has. Highest: Coordination talk swamps the work as the organization growsAd hoc groupings where no one owns the whole taskIdeas multiply while execution goes haphazardFluidity dissolves the roles people coordinate byCoordination overhead overrunDiffused responsibilityGrounding failureAuthority-gradient suppressionRegulator overloadRole-structure collapse
Select a failure to read its place in the network.Coordination talk swamps the work as the organization grows. Degree 1Ad hoc groupings where no one owns the whole task. Degree 3Ideas multiply while execution goes haphazard. Degree 1Fluidity dissolves the roles people coordinate by. Degree 1Coordination overhead overrun. Degree 1Diffused responsibility. Degree 1Grounding failure. Degree 1Authority-gradient suppression. Degree 1Regulator overload. Degree 1Role-structure collapse. Degree 1
| Failure | Degree |
|---|---|
| Coordination talk swamps the work as the organization grows | 1 |
| Ad hoc groupings where no one owns the whole task | 3 |
| Ideas multiply while execution goes haphazard | 1 |
| Fluidity dissolves the roles people coordinate by | 1 |
| Coordination overhead overrun | 1 |
| Diffused responsibility | 1 |
| Grounding failure | 1 |
| Authority-gradient suppression | 1 |
| Regulator overload | 1 |
| Role-structure collapse | 1 |
Four failure modes name six patterns, and no pattern is named by more than one.
Source: Thompson 1967; Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Valentine and Edmondson 2015, one case study; Lee 2022, a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry; Schreyögg and Sydow 2010, a conceptual essay; Bechky 2006, an ethnography of one kind of temporary organization; Bechky and Okhuysen 2011, a comparative ethnography of two settings.
Coordination talk swamps the work as the organization grows. Our judgment: links outgrow mutual adjustment, Thompson's (1967) costliest mode; no study measures it.
Ad hoc groupings where no one owns the whole task. Valentine and Edmondson (2015), one case study of a hospital emergency department, found ad hoc groupings flexible but lacking mutual accountability, shared understanding, and safety in reaching across roles: in our judgment, diffused responsibility, grounding failure, and authority-gradient suppression.
Ideas multiply while execution goes haphazard. Lee (2022), a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry, found a flatter hierarchy improving ideation but bringing haphazard execution and commercial failure. It measured layers, not adhocracy; the regulator overload link is ours.
Fluidity dissolves the roles people coordinate by. Schreyögg and Sydow (2010), a conceptual essay, argue that fluidity taken to its conclusion would lose the essence of organizing. Temporary groups are held together by structured role systems negotiated in place (Bechky 2006, an ethnography of one kind of temporary organization) and, under surprise, by bricolage (Bechky and Okhuysen 2011, a comparative ethnography of two settings). Without them, in our judgment, the risk is role-structure collapse.
Burton and Obel (2004) proposed the misfit rules, which have not been tested singly. Burton, Lauridsen, and Obel (2002), a quantitative study of 224 Danish small and medium-sized firms testing an earlier version as a set, found lower return on assets where misfits stood, and added misfits added no loss. Every rule is qualified by two studies. Drazin and Van de Ven (1985), a quantitative study of 629 work units in two states' employment security agencies, supported the selection form of fit the explorer uses and the systems form (many features consistent at once), but not the interaction form, one factor paired with one structure, as each rule pairs them. Volberda and colleagues (2012), a survey of 3,259 respondents in 1,904 companies, found contingency and institutional fit complementary: firms in full institutional fit lost slightly striving for contingency fit, so a firing rule does not show a move would help them.
One rule fires without dispute: authority spread wide, for the analyzer that does not innovate (Burton and Obel recommend medium centralization for the one that does). Seven fire and are disputed.
Few written rules for a defender, in a large organization, or in a stable environment, and authority spread wide for a defender, are disputed from Mintzberg's (1980) little-formalized, decentralized professional bureaucracy in complex but stable environments: skills standardized by long training can stand in for rules, and spread authority need not fail in a stable domain. For the stable case another Burton and Obel rule points the other way; the 2002 test held no large firms. For an analyzer with few written rules, the same 2004 book allows the innovating analyzer a simple configuration when small, and the explorer's one analyzer level merges both kinds.
Routine work without written standards is disputed by organizational choice, one technology admitting several ways of organizing work (Trist and colleagues 1963, several field studies in one industry), though Kelly (1978), a critical reanalysis of several published case studies, found only autonomous groups superior in the cases. Self-regulating groups were reported successful in many experiments, few of which changed the technology (Pasmore and colleagues 1982, a review of 134 reported experiments; Beekun 1989, a meta-analysis of 17 studies); that the work was routine is our reading. Adler and Cole (1993) instead held NUMMI's standardized work better for organizational learning; Héthy (1986), a comparative review of official reports and published surveys from several countries, found autonomy far smaller than allowed and productivity gains averaging 1% to 2%; Fuhrich (2019), one case study, found groups rationalizing against themselves under cost pressure. The Aston reappraisal found the technological imperative generally not supported (Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey 1969); Child and Mansfield (1972), a multi-firm comparative study, found size related to structure far more than technology; and Glisson (1978), a path analysis of 30 human service organizations, found routinization depending on structure.
The reactor rule for a defender, our judgment from Miles and Snow (1978), is disputed by Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson (2015): a reactor fits a calm environment, though such firms often die if they keep the strategy too long. Snow and Hrebiniak (1980), a study of top managers' perceptions in four industries, found the other types outperforming reactors in competitive industries but not in a highly regulated one, on data they call only suggestive; reading regulation as calm is our judgment.
What the research found
Mintzberg's (1980) synthesis has one main direct test: Doty, Glick, and Huber (1993), a quantitative test across a sample of organizations, found that resembling his types did not predict effectiveness, while fit to Miles and Snow's types predicted 24 percent of the variance. Krabberød (2015), reading the 218 articles citing the test, argues it has not been shown to be exhaustive. Ketchen and colleagues (1997), a meta-analysis of 40 tests, found configurations partly explain performance, but many it pooled were strategy types, and tests of pure structural types are mixed.
The organic results answer different questions, founding teams in a turbulent sector (Sine and colleagues 2006) and small manufacturers in hostile settings (Covin and Slevin 1989); Kessler, Nixon, and Nord (2017), a review of the empirical studies, warn that organic structure has been measured inconsistently.
No temporary-group study above tests adhocracy by name, nor does any the search found since 2010 in the major journals.
Martela (2019), a conceptual argument and the most recent study filed under this form, sets adhocracy against bureaucracy and calls the self-managing organization a novel form; Foss and Klein (2022) reach the opposite conclusion on managerial authority, and Parikh (2016) argues that ambidexterity now covers what adhocracy offered.
Against contingency theory, structure is chosen by those with power (Child 1972), spreads by legitimacy (Meyer and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983), or is sorted by selection (Hannan and Freeman 1984); Donaldson (1987, a quantitative study of firms over time; 2001) replies that misfit lowers performance and prompts adjustment toward fit. Configuration theorists set themselves apart from contingency theory (Meyer, Tsui, and Hinings 1993), and Miller (1986) found strategy and structure studies oversimplified, missing configurations of the two; Donaldson (2001) answers that fits form a continuum, most organizations at intermediate points, and that change is mostly incremental; and Mintzberg (1991) expects adhocracy to be most common in hybrids, and a 1992 book version of a similar text finds no truly effective organization in pure form.
The evidence ledger holds 11 studies filed under this form.
In practice: one published case
Mintzberg and McHugh (1985), "Strategy formation in an adhocracy," is one case study of the National Film Board of Canada, which the abstract on record describes as a single-project organization and the paper's title frames as an adhocracy.
Across almost four decades, the Board pursued a series of strategies, which the authors identified and tracked.
On outcomes, the abstract does not report what became of the Board or whether its quest for adhocracy succeeded. In a later account, the first author calls the Board "the quintessential adhocracy, with each film a project in its own right" (Mintzberg 2024): it branched from short documentaries into feature films without planning by senior management, when one film ran too long for its usual channels and was marketed as a feature in theaters, and other filmmakers followed.
The source concludes that its findings center on three themes: the emergent nature of the Board's strategies, its cycles of behavior, and its quest for adhocracy.
As evidence, it is one organization. The record rests on the abstract, which gives neither the years covered nor how emergent the strategies were, and the feature films come from the author's later summary. It shows the Board, not adhocracies in general.
Source: Mintzberg and McHugh 1985. Strategy formation in an adhocracy, Administrative Science Quarterly 30(2), 160 to 197; one case study.
Variants and near relatives
Operating and administrative adhocracy (Mintzberg 1979). The operating adhocracy innovates directly for clients, blending administrative and operating work; the administrative adhocracy innovates for itself, its operating core cut off or automated.
Organic management system (Burns and Stalker 1961). The adhocracy's near relative in the contingency literature. It is a pole, not a configuration, opposite their mechanistic system on one continuum and suited to changing conditions, where effective organization alters with rates of technical or market change.
Platform organization (Ciborra 1996). From Olivetti, one case study: a platform from which the hierarchy, the matrix, and the network are drawn out, tried, and discarded as circumstances require. It is not the network entry's platform orchestration of outside complementors. Galbraith's reconfigurable organization (2002, 2014) is taught here too: teams and networks formed across units as strategy shifts; its internal prices belong to internal-market.
Flexible form (Volberda 1996). A design for hypercompetitive environments whose flexibility derives from managerial capabilities and responsiveness; Lee and Edmondson (2017), a review, place it among post-bureaucratic designs. A descendant of the organic management system above.
Adhocracy culture (Hartnell, Ou, and Kinicki 2011) is a culture type in the competing values framework, not a structure, and belongs to Culture & Organizational Development; studies of it are not evidence for this form.
Project-based organization, the nearest neighbor, makes the bounded, time-limited project for a client its unit of production; the adhocracy treats the whole organization as a shifting pool of experts. The two meet in the operating adhocracy, which also works for clients, but the project-based form keeps project management standards, where the adhocracy relies on mutual adjustment. Mintzberg's (2024) temporary project pioneers, which disband after one project, fall in our reading on the project-based side.
The adhocracy beside its nearest neighbor, the project-based organization
Select a number to fill what it marks in both drawings; the list under them gives the dimensions on which the two profiles differ.
In its permanent kind, which reorganizes internally from project to project (Mintzberg 2024), it treats the whole organization as a shifting pool of experts in which teams form and dissolve around problems, with no stable line above them; bounded projects for clients are not its unit of production.
Adhocracy (innovative organization)
Reports toAdvises, or reports indirectlyAdjust to each other directlyMMutual adjustment2Two superiors
- No stable line runs above the adhocracy's teams; the project-based firm's projects answer to the firm, which decides which projects to take on, our judgment.
- The adhocracy's expert sits in a functional unit and a project team at once, two bosses in a matrix; the project-based specialist works in a project, with only thin functional pools behind the projects.
- The adhocracy's teams form around problems, and in its permanent kind bounded projects for clients are not its unit of production; in the project-based firm they are, so client is a basis of its grouping.
- In the adhocracy mutual adjustment runs within and between the teams; in the project-based firm it runs inside each project, and project management standards hold across projects.
Differs on 9 of 11 dimensions
- Basis of grouping Two or more at once; Project-based organization: Product or purpose and client or market segment
- Standardization and formalization Low; Project-based organization: Medium
- Centralization Decentralized; Project-based organization: Mixed
- Layers and span of control Moderate; Project-based organization: Flat
- Decision rights and the locus of authority Selective vertical and horizontal decentralization; Project-based organization: Limited vertical decentralization to selective vertical and horizontal decentralization
- Lateral mechanisms Matrix; Project-based organization: Hierarchy, rules, and goals only to direct contact and liaison roles
- Differentiation against integration High differentiation, heavy integration; Project-based organization: Moderate differentiation, some integrating roles
- Mode of exchange and control Clan; Project-based organization: Market and bureaucracy
- Boundary permeability Permeable; Project-based organization: Selective to permeable
In each, teams of specialists do the work and coordinate by mutual adjustment. The adhocracy, in its permanent kind, runs the whole organization as a pool of experts whose teams form and dissolve with no stable line above them, and the project-based firm runs a portfolio of bounded projects, often for clients.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Mintzberg 2024; Hobday 2000, one case study with a conceptual model; Sydow and colleagues 2004.
Moving into or out of it
Mintzberg (2024) names two transitions: a project pioneer can settle into a programmed machine to exploit a project's success, and a programmed machine can automate until it reorganizes around project teams maintaining the equipment.
No study follows a move into or out of the form. Nearest is one emergency department's redesign (Valentine and Edmondson 2015, one case study): team scaffolds gave a bounded set of roles collective responsibility for a whole task, and patient throughput time improved by 40 percent.
The theory of Hannan and Freeman (1984) holds that inertia rises with age, that attempts at reorganization raise death rates, and that reorganization resets the liability-of-newness clock; Amburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993), a quantitative study of organizational change and failure rates, found the effects of change on failure vary by type of change and over time.
For running the reorganization itself, see Change & Transformation.
The thinking behind it
Henry Mintzberg (1979, 1980): the configuration coordinated by mutual adjustment in complex, dynamic environments.
Warren Bennis and Philip Slater (1968) and Alvin Toffler (1970): temporary systems replacing bureaucracy, and Toffler's name for them.
Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker (1961): organic management.
James D. Thompson (1967): reciprocal interdependence and mutual adjustment, the form's fit and cost.
Richard Burton and Børge Obel (2004): the ad hoc configuration and the misfit rules.
Claudio Ciborra (1996), Henk Volberda (1996), and Georg Schreyögg (with Jörg Sydow, 2010): structures tried and discarded, flexibility as capability, and fluidity's counterweight.
Beth Bechky (2006; with Gerardo Okhuysen, 2011) and Melissa Valentine (with Amy Edmondson, 2015): how temporary groups coordinate.
Michael Hannan (with John Freeman, 1984): inertia rising with age; reorganization raising death rates.
Also called
Innovative organization (Mintzberg 1989). Organic organization, after Burns and Stalker (1961). Temporary system (Bennis and Slater 1968). Ad-hocracy, Toffler's (1970) spelling. Burton and Obel's (2004) term: ad hoc configuration. Project pioneer, Mintzberg's later name (2023, 2024).
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