One leader coordinates nearly everything by direct supervision, with little specialization, few rules, and almost no staff.
What it is
A simple structure is run by one person: the leader at the top, often the founder or owner, coordinates nearly everything by direct supervision. Mintzberg (2024) says many organizations come close to one form and others are hybrids or in transition.
The simple structure runs nearly everything through one leader
Select a unit or the letter to read it; the key above the drawing names the line and the letter used.
Reports toDDirect supervision
Select a unit or a letter to read it. D, direct supervision: One person takes responsibility for the work of others, giving instructions and monitoring their actions.Leader, often the founder. Layer: Strategic apex. Reports to no one. Holds power over all important decisions and coordinates the work by direct supervision; communication runs informally between the leader and everyone else.Operator. Layer: Operating core. Reports to Leader, often the founder. Works in an organic operating core with a loose division of labor and few formal rules.Operator. Layer: Operating core. Reports to Leader, often the founder. Reports, in effect, to the leader; grouping, where it exists at all, is loose and by function.Operator. Layer: Operating core. Reports to Leader, often the founder. Has little specialized staff to turn to, since the form has almost none.Operator. Layer: Operating core. Reports to Leader, often the founder. Brings exceptions and back-and-forth work to the leader, since every adjustment routes through the common boss.D, direct supervision. One person takes responsibility for the work of others, giving instructions and monitoring their actions.
The structure in words
- Strategic apex
- Leader, often the founder, reports to no one, coordinated by direct supervision. Holds power over all important decisions and coordinates the work by direct supervision; communication runs informally between the leader and everyone else.
- Operating core
- Operator, reports to Leader, often the founder. Works in an organic operating core with a loose division of labor and few formal rules.
- Operator, reports to Leader, often the founder. Reports, in effect, to the leader; grouping, where it exists at all, is loose and by function.
- Operator, reports to Leader, often the founder. Has little specialized staff to turn to, since the form has almost none.
- Operator, reports to Leader, often the founder. Brings exceptions and back-and-forth work to the leader, since every adjustment routes through the common boss.
The leader, often the founder or owner, coordinates nearly everything by direct supervision, and most communication runs between the leader and everyone else. There is almost no staff and little middle line, so coordination rests on the leader's attention.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test.
Its profile, from Mintzberg's (1980) synthesis: loose functional grouping; low specialization, with almost no staff; low formalization; centralized; flat, with a small middle line and large units; decision rights centralized vertically and horizontally, his Type A; direct supervision as the coordinating mechanism; only hierarchy, rules, and goals as lateral mechanisms; and low differentiation, which the leader integrates.
No source rates the next two levels; they are our reading. Mode of exchange is bureaucracy: people work under the leader's authority in an employment relation (Williamson 1975; Ouchi 1980, a conceptual article), though with few written rules. Boundary permeability spans closed and selective: few internal boundaries exist, and the leader holds the external one.
Where the simple structure 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: Function or process. Basis: Theory. Grouping, where it exists at all, is on a loose functional basis, and most communication runs informally between the leader and everyone else. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Specialization: Low. Basis: Theory. A loose division of labor: horizontal job specialization is low and almost no staff specialists exist. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Standardization and formalization: Low. Basis: Theory. Little behavior is formalized, and decision making is informal. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Centralization: Centralized. Basis: Theory. Power over all important decisions tends to sit with the chief executive. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Layers and span of control: Flat. Basis: Theory. A small middle line and large units: the structure is often little more than a one-person apex over an organic operating core. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Decision rights and the locus of authority: Vertical and horizontal centralization. Basis: Theory. Mintzberg's Type A, vertical and horizontal centralization, is the type he ties to this configuration. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Prime coordinating mechanism: Direct supervision. Basis: Theory. Direct supervision by the leader is the key coordinating mechanism. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Lateral mechanisms: Hierarchy, rules, and goals only. Basis: Theory. Minimal use of the liaison devices; communication runs informally between the chief executive and everyone else. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Differentiation against integration: Low differentiation, light integration. Basis: Theory. Minimal differentiation among units, which the leader holds together directly. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Mode of exchange and control: Bureaucracy. Basis: Judgment. People work under the leader's authority in an employment relation, which is Williamson's hierarchy and Ouchi's bureaucracy, though with few written rules; no work places the form on Ouchi's scale, so this is judgment. Sources: Williamson 1975; Ouchi 1980; Mintzberg 1980.Boundary permeability: Closed to selective. Basis: Judgment. Few internal boundaries exist to cross, and the leader holds the external one; neither source rates the form, so the span is judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Ashkenas and colleagues 1995.
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; Williamson 1975; Ouchi 1980, a conceptual article; Ashkenas and colleagues 1995.
Where it came from
In The Structuring of Organizations (1979), Henry Mintzberg named the simple structure as one of five configurations into which he sorted the design research; he summarized it a year later (Mintzberg 1980).
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, Configuration theory, Strategic choice, and Population ecology.
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.
Its question was how a young or small organization in a simple, dynamic setting works while one person can hold all of it in mind, and why it strains as it grows.
It has no sector of origin: Mintzberg (1980) associates it with smaller and younger organizations, strong leaders, and severe crises.
Where it fits
Most cells rest on theory: Mintzberg (1980), Burton and Obel's (2004) multi-contingency model, the most developed scholarly fit model, and Greiner (1972), a conceptual model with no systematic test. No study found tests this form against any factor, and a cell no work settles is our reading.
The simple structure 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. One leader can supervise a small organization directly; as it grows, the leader's time runs out and the work needs middle managers, rules, and staff. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Greiner 1972; Pugh and colleagues 1969a.Age. A young organization runs on its founder's direct supervision and few routines; as it ages, routines and specialists accumulate and the founder-led form gives way. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Greiner 1972; Sine and colleagues 2006; Baron and colleagues 1999; Bruderl and Schussler 1990; Davis and colleagues 2009. View 1: Young fits, Established partial, Old strain. Simple structure goes with young organizations (Mintzberg 1980), and the founder-led phase ends as the firm grows older and larger (Greiner 1972). Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Greiner 1972. View 2: Young partial, Established partial, Old strain. Among new Internet ventures, founding teams with more formalization, specialization, and administrative intensity outperformed more organic ones, and a simulation found it better to err on the side of too much structure and that entrepreneurial organizations should quickly add structure in all environments, so staying informal is not what makes a young firm fit. Sources: Sine and colleagues 2006; Davis and colleagues 2009.Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism). Centralized, informal control lets one leader react quickly where the environment moves but stays simple; in a stable setting standardization would pay more. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Sine and colleagues 2006; Doty and colleagues 1993; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Davis and colleagues 2009; Pennings 1975. View 1: Stable partial, Shifting fits, Unpredictable fits. The simple structure goes with simple, dynamic environments (Mintzberg 1980), and Burton and Obel's model lets a small firm in an uncertain environment fit a simple configuration. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004. View 2: Stable partial, Shifting fits, Unpredictable partial. In a dynamic sector, new ventures whose founding teams had more formalization and specialization outperformed organic ones, against the Burns and Stalker proposition. Sources: Sine and colleagues 2006. View 3: Stable fits, Shifting partial, Unpredictable strain. Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson's Table 4.1 puts the simple configuration in the calm column, so a simple structure in an unpredictable environment, the locally stormy or turbulent column, has its assessments in different columns, which they call a misfit. Sources: Burton and colleagues 2015b.Environmental complexity. One person at the top can read a simple environment; as the factors that matter multiply and differ, no single head can grasp them all. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Pennings 1975.Munificence and hostility. Works disagree: the fit model calls for a simple, centralized configuration under extreme hostility, while a survey of small firms found decentralized, organic structures doing best in hostile environments. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980; Covin and Slevin 1989; Cameron and colleagues 1987; Pennings 1975. View 1: Hostile fits, Neutral partial, Munificent partial. Extreme hostility calls for a simple, centralized configuration and a unified effort, and the simple structure is found in organizations facing severe crises. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980. View 2: Hostile partial, Neutral partial, Munificent partial. Among 161 small manufacturers, organic structures, which let the expert in a situation have the most say, did best in hostile environments; a structure run from the top is not organic on that item, and at high, as against extreme, hostility the fit model says only that a simple configuration is possible. Sources: Covin and Slevin 1989; Burton and Obel 2004.Diversity of products and markets. One leader supervising directly can run one business; several businesses overload the single head. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Chandler 1962; Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004.Strategy type. Burton and Obel's 2004 rules recommend a simple configuration for a prospector and for a small analyzer with innovation, and a functional one for a defender, whose high formalization a simple structure lacks; the later book (2015) says only that it could work for a prospector with a narrow strategy. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Mintzberg 1980. View 1: Defender (exploitation) partial, Analyzer (exploitation and exploration) partial, Prospector (exploration) fits. Burton and Obel's 2004 rules give the prospector a simple, ad hoc, or matrix configuration and allow the simple one for a small analyzer with innovation. Sources: Burton and Obel 2004. View 2: Defender (exploitation) partial, Analyzer (exploitation and exploration) partial, Prospector (exploration) partial. The later book (2015) says the simple configuration fits the reactor and could also work for a prospector with a narrow strategy, a narrower claim than the 2004 rule. Sources: Burton and colleagues 2015b.Technology and routineness. One leader's direct supervision can handle exceptions case by case in craft-like work, but routine volume work calls for standards a simple structure lacks, and many unanalyzable exceptions overload one person. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980; Perrow 1967; Hickson and colleagues 1969; Burton and Obel 2004; Doty and colleagues 1993; Mohr 1971.Interdependence. The leader can allocate shared resources and set the order of work directly, but when every unit must adjust to every other, all the adjustment runs through one person. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Thompson 1967; Mintzberg 1980.Knowledge intensity and professionalization. Direct supervision by one leader suits work learned on the job; trained professionals pull for the decentralization this form denies, and Mintzberg places even a small professional organization in the professional bureaucracy. Basis: Theory. Grade: conceptual only, no empirical test. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Global integration pressure. One leader can hold a small firm's activities together by direct supervision, but strong pressure to integrate activities across countries needs coordinating capacity beyond one person's reach. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.Local responsiveness pressure. One central leader can adapt a small firm quickly, but strong pressure to adapt offerings and operations to many countries' customers, channels, and governments makes the setting complex, and the simple structure belongs to simple settings. Basis: Judgment. Sources: Mintzberg 1980.
Counting each contested cell by its first view, the 36 settings read Fits at 12, Partial at 16, and Strain at 8. Four of the twelve factor cells are contested, and five rest on judgment.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Burton and Obel 2004; Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; Pugh and colleagues 1969a, a multi-organization comparative survey of 46 organizations; Sine and colleagues 2006, a quantitative study of new ventures in one sector; Baron and colleagues 1999, a longitudinal study of many young firms; Bruderl and Schussler 1990, a quantitative study of business mortality in West Germany; Davis and colleagues 2009, a computer simulation, with no field data; Burton and colleagues 2020a; Doty and colleagues 1993, a quantitative test across a sample of organizations; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Pennings 1975, a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model; Covin and Slevin 1989, a survey of 161 small manufacturers; Cameron and colleagues 1987, a six-year study of 334 institutions of higher education; Chandler 1962, several independent case histories by a historian; 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 simple structure
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 prospector that decides everything at the top. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A defender without written standards. 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: A large organization run as a simple structure. Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A large organization with few written rules. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): A large organization that decides everything at the top. 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): Nonroutine work decided at the top. Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; Child and Mansfield 1972; Mohr 1971.
- 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.
- Sinks the form: A simple structure in a turbulent environment. Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Burton and colleagues 2020a.
- Sinks the form: Central decisions in a turbulent environment. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
- Sinks the form: One way of working for very different parts of the environment. Source: Lawrence and Lorsch 1967a; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967b.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): The hierarchy alone carries an unpredictable environment. Disputed: Galbraith 1974; Galbraith 1973; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980.
- Flagged (its sources disagree): The hierarchy alone carries nonroutine work. Disputed: Galbraith 1974; Galbraith 1973; against it, Schoonhoven 1981.
- Sinks the form: The hierarchy alone carries reciprocal work. Source: Galbraith 1973; Galbraith 1974; Thompson 1967.
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 prospector that decides everything at the top fires when Strategy type at Prospector (exploration): flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Burton and Obel 2004.
- 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.
- 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.
- A large organization run as a simple structure fires when Size at Large: sinks the form. Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Mintzberg 1980.
- 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.
- A large organization that decides everything at the top 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.
- Nonroutine work decided at the top fires when Technology and routineness at Nonroutine: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Burton and Obel 2004; against it, Hickson and colleagues 1969; Child and Mansfield 1972; Mohr 1971.
- 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.
- A simple structure in a turbulent environment fires when Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism) at Unpredictable and Environmental complexity at Complex: sinks the form. Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Burton and colleagues 2020a.
- Central decisions in a turbulent environment fires when Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism) at Unpredictable and Environmental complexity at Complex: sinks the form. Source: Burton and Obel 2004.
- One way of working for very different parts of the environment fires when Environmental complexity at Complex: sinks the form. Source: Lawrence and Lorsch 1967a; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967b.
- The hierarchy alone carries an unpredictable environment fires when Environmental uncertainty (unpredictability, dynamism) at Unpredictable: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Galbraith 1974; Galbraith 1973; against it, Burton and Obel 2004; Mintzberg 1980.
- The hierarchy alone carries nonroutine work fires when Technology and routineness at Nonroutine: flagged (its sources disagree). Disputed: Galbraith 1974; Galbraith 1973; against it, Schoonhoven 1981.
- The hierarchy alone carries reciprocal work fires when Interdependence at Reciprocal: sinks the form. Source: Galbraith 1973; Galbraith 1974; Thompson 1967.
Of the 39 contingency misfit rules, 15 can fire for this form: five would sink it and ten would only flag it.
Source: Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2020a.
- Size: fits small, partial at medium, strains when large, as the leader's time runs out (Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004; Greiner 1972).
- Age: contested. One view: fits young, partial when established, strains when old (Mintzberg 1980; Greiner 1972). The other: partial even when young, since Internet ventures with more formal founding teams outperformed organic ones (Sine, Mitsuhashi, and Kirsch 2006, a quantitative study of new ventures in one sector, so age does not vary, measuring only founding teams), and a computer simulation, with no field data, comparing entrepreneurial with established organizations found the entrepreneurial ones should quickly add structure in all environments (Davis, Eisenhardt, and Bingham 2009).
- Environmental uncertainty: contested. One view: partial when stable, fits when shifting or unpredictable, since one leader reacts quickly (Mintzberg 1980; Burton and Obel 2004). A second rates the unpredictable level partial (Sine, Mitsuhashi, and Kirsch 2006). A third: fits when stable, partial when shifting (our reading), strains when unpredictable, since Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson's (2015) table, which joins unpredictability with complexity, puts the simple configuration in its calm column.
- Environmental complexity: fits simple and partial at moderate (Mintzberg 1980), strains when complex, where one head cannot grasp every factor (Burton and Obel 2004).
- Munificence and hostility: contested. One view: fits a hostile environment, partial otherwise (Burton and Obel 2004, under extreme hostility; Mintzberg 1980, on severe crises). The other: partial at every level, since in a survey of 161 small manufacturers organic structures did best under hostility (Covin and Slevin 1989), and at high, not extreme, hostility Burton and Obel call a simple configuration only possible.
- Diversity of products and markets: fits a single business, strains under diversification. Our reading, on Chandler (1962, several independent case histories by a historian), on centralized structures straining as firms diversified, and Burton and Obel (2004), on diversity that may lead to divisionalization.
- Strategy type: contested. One view: partial for defender and analyzer, fits a prospector (Burton and Obel 2004, who recommend it for a prospector and allow it for a small analyzer with innovation). The other: partial throughout, since Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson (2015) say only that it fits the reactor and could work for a prospector with a narrow strategy.
- Technology and routineness: partial for routine, fits mixed, partial for nonroutine. Our reading, on premises from Perrow (1967), Mintzberg (1980), and Burton and Obel (2004): one person handles craft-like exceptions, not routine volume work or many unanalyzable exceptions.
- Interdependence: fits pooled and sequential, partial for reciprocal. Our reading: the leader can allocate resources and order the work, but all mutual adjustment runs through one person (premise: Thompson 1967).
- Knowledge intensity: fits low, partial at moderate (interpolated), strains at high, since professionals pull for decentralization (Mintzberg 1980).
- Global integration and local responsiveness pressure: partial at low and moderate, strains at high, on each. Our reading of Mintzberg (1980): many countries' demands exceed one person's reach.
Doty, Glick, and Huber (1993, a quantitative test across a sample of organizations) on resembling Mintzberg's types (every cell), Pennings (1975, a quantitative field test of the structural-contingency model) on environmental fit (the environment cells), and Mohr (1971, a quantitative field study of technology and structure) on technology fit (the technology cell) each found that fit did not predict effectiveness. These three limits set no level, since each tests a performance claim the explorer's selection form of fit does not make. Donaldson (2001) traces the last two failures to methodological limitations and reports positive evidence from later studies of the job unpredictability Mohr studied.
What it does well
It is fast and cheap, with almost no staff and few rules. A small company with low formalization and high centralization is flexible and quick (Burton and Obel 2004), and one leader can react to a moving environment (Mintzberg 1980).
Under threat it can unite an organization: Burton and Obel (2004) call for a simple, centralized configuration under extreme hostility, which needs a unified effort. Both strengths are contested: by Sine, Mitsuhashi, and Kirsch (2006) on formal founding teams, by Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson (2015), whose table puts the form in calm environments, and by Covin and Slevin (1989) on organic structures under hostility.
What it costs
The organization can do only what one person can attend to. Important decisions sit with the leader, and the executive can quickly become overloaded (Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson 2015).
Standards are missing. Work that could follow known procedures is left to each person's judgment (Burton and Obel 2004, in a rule contested below).
How it fails
As the organization grows, the founder becomes the bottleneck (regulator overload). Greiner (1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test) ends the founder-led phase in a crisis of leadership, and Burton and Obel (2004) call a large organization run as a simple configuration a misfit.
How the simple structure 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: The founder becomes the bottleneck as the organization growsOne person cannot follow a complex, turbulent environmentExceptions and back-and-forth work queue for one personA flat start-up can execute haphazardlyRegulator overloadModel-world divergenceCoordination overhead overrunJurisdictional gap or overlap
Select a failure to read its place in the network.The founder becomes the bottleneck as the organization grows. Degree 1One person cannot follow a complex, turbulent environment. Degree 2Exceptions and back-and-forth work queue for one person. Degree 2A flat start-up can execute haphazardly. Degree 2Regulator overload. Degree 4Model-world divergence. Degree 1Coordination overhead overrun. Degree 1Jurisdictional gap or overlap. Degree 1
| Failure | Degree |
|---|---|
| The founder becomes the bottleneck as the organization grows | 1 |
| One person cannot follow a complex, turbulent environment | 2 |
| Exceptions and back-and-forth work queue for one person | 2 |
| A flat start-up can execute haphazardly | 2 |
| Regulator overload | 4 |
| Model-world divergence | 1 |
| Coordination overhead overrun | 1 |
| Jurisdictional gap or overlap | 1 |
Four failure modes name four patterns; Regulator overload is named by all four.
Source: Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; Burton and Obel 2004; Burton and colleagues 2015b; Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Galbraith 1973; Galbraith 1974; Thompson 1967; Lee 2022, a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry.
One person cannot follow a complex, turbulent environment. When many dissimilar factors change unpredictably, the leader's picture falls behind the world (regulator overload and model-world divergence). Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson's (2015) table agrees with the misfit; Burton and Obel (2004) state it for low equivocality only, a qualifier the explorer does not rate.
Exceptions and back-and-forth work queue for one person, since every adjustment routes through the common boss unless lateral links are added (Galbraith 1973, 1974; Thompson 1967). This is regulator overload and, as people are added, coordination overhead overrun.
A flat start-up can execute haphazardly, since a flatter hierarchy can overwhelm managers and let subordinates drift into power struggles (Lee 2022): regulator overload and jurisdictional gap or overlap.
Only an uncontested misfit rule sinks a form, even where a cell reads partial; five fire here, four of them propositions graded as theory: the two above, central decisions in a turbulent environment (Burton and Obel 2004), and reciprocal work carried by the hierarchy alone (Galbraith 1973; Thompson 1967). The fifth is our reading: one way of working for very different parts of the environment, which reads Lawrence and Lorsch's (1967, a multi-firm comparative field study) diverse subenvironments as a complex environment, and fires only on forms grouped by function, as their firms were.
Of the ten contested rules, which show both views and sink nothing, all but the two Galbraith rules are Burton and Obel's (2004). A prospector deciding at the top meets their own simple configuration for the prospector; an analyzer without standards, their simple configuration for a small, innovating analyzer, since the explorer merges their two analyzers; a large organization with few rules or central decisions, Mintzberg's (1980) professional and machine bureaucracies; routine work without standards, self-regulating work groups (Trist and others 1963, several field studies in one industry; Pasmore and others 1982, a review of 134 reported experiments; Beekun 1989, a meta-analysis of 17 studies), though Kelly (1978, a critical reanalysis of several published case studies) found their autonomy limited and the role of pay seriously underestimated, the Aston reappraisal (Hickson, Pugh, and Pheysey 1969, a multi-organization comparative survey), and Child and Mansfield's (1972, a multi-firm comparative study) size finding; few rules in a stable environment, another Burton and Obel rule and the professional bureaucracy, which also answers a defender without written standards; nonroutine work decided at the top, Mohr (1971), the Aston reappraisal, and Child and Mansfield's size finding; an unpredictable environment carried by the hierarchy alone (Galbraith 1973, 1974), Burton and Obel's simple configuration for a simple, uncertain environment and Mintzberg's simple, dynamic one; and nonroutine work carried that way, Schoonhoven (1981, a quantitative study of hospital operating room suites), who found traditional hypotheses drawn from Galbraith unsupported.
Limits: Burton, Lauridsen, and Obel (2002, a quantitative study of 224 Danish small and medium-sized firms, none large) tested the model's 1998 version of the rules only as a set, finding lower return on assets with misfits but no further loss from added ones. Each rule is the interaction form of fit, which Drazin and Van de Ven (1985, a quantitative study of 629 work units in two states' employment security agencies) found unsupported.
What the research found
Its founding claims are theory: Mintzberg (1980), a synthesis of earlier research, offers propositions without a new test. No study found tests the simple structure by name, though the search was incomplete (two indexes limited requests).
Doty, Glick, and Huber's (1993) test rests on one sample and the authors' own measure of resemblance. Krabberød (2015), a review, found none of 218 citing articles discussing what this meant for Mintzberg's theory, and argues the test has not been shown exhaustive and the silence has explanations other than agreement. Ketchen and colleagues (1997), a meta-analysis of 40 tests, found configurations partly explain performance, but it pools configuration definitions, many of them strategy types, and tests of pure structural types remain mixed.
On young firms, the studies disagree. Freeman, Carroll, and Hannan (1983), a quantitative study of three populations of organizations, found a liability of newness in each; Brüderl and Schüssler (1990), a quantitative study of business mortality in West Germany, found mortality peaking one to fifteen years after founding, a liability of adolescence. Neither measures structure. Lee (2022), a quantitative study of many start-ups in one industry, found that a flatter hierarchy can improve ideation but can lead to haphazard execution; it measures layers, not this form. Baron, Hannan, and Burton (1999), a longitudinal study of many young firms, all technology start-ups in one region, found founders' employment models imprinting later administrative intensity.
DeSantola, Gulati, and Zhelyazkov (2023), a longitudinal quantitative study of thousands of young ventures and the most recent study, found divergent paths of professionalization, which qualifies stage models like Greiner's (1972), a conceptual model with no systematic test.
Four schools dissent from reading this as fit. Configuration theorists set their approach apart from contingency theory (Meyer, Tsui, and Hinings 1993, an introductory essay); Miller (1986, a synthesis of earlier studies) argued that strategy and structure studies oversimplify by focusing on diversification and divisionalization; Donaldson (2001) replies that fits form a continuum, most organizations sitting between types, and that change is mostly incremental. Strategic choice holds that power-holders choose structure, with context constraining it without determining it (Child 1972); Donaldson (2001) answers that organizations mostly adopt the structures their contingencies dictate, so choice is at most limited. Population ecology holds that inertia limits adaptation, so selection does the sorting (Hannan and Freeman 1984); Astley and Van de Ven (1983) set this determinism against strategic choice's voluntarism, and Lewin and Volberda (1999, 2003) propose coevolution of organizations and environments to reframe the standoff. Institutional theorists hold that structures are adopted for legitimacy and decoupled from work (Meyer and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983); Volberda and colleagues (2012, a survey of 3,259 respondents in 1,904 companies) found the two kinds of fit complementary: firms in perfect institutional fit lose slightly by striving for contingency fit, while firms high in contingency fit are less vulnerable to deviating from institutional fit. Donaldson (1995) replies that ecology understates managers' capacity to adapt and that the evidence for fit-driven adjustment is stronger than institutional theory allows.
The evidence ledger holds 10 studies filed under this form.
In practice: one published case
Mintzberg and Waters (1982), Tracking strategy in an entrepreneurial firm, is one case study. The organization is a retail chain, named Steinberg Inc. in the chapter title of a later reprint.
The chain was run as an entrepreneurial firm, and over the period it grew large and formalized its structure. The authors tracked its strategies from 1917 to 1975. In Mintzberg's later account (1989), it was a large supermarket chain built and run for more than half a century by Sam Steinberg, whom he calls "the epitome of the entrepreneur." The study found only two important reorientations: a shift to self-service in 1933, and shopping centers and public financing in 1953.
The study draws conclusions about strategy formation in an entrepreneurial firm that grows large and formalizes its structure, focusing on patterns of strategic change and on the contrasting characteristics of entrepreneurship and planning.
Its evidence is one firm, and its conclusions concern strategy more than structure. The source's term is entrepreneurial firm; taking the chain's growth as the path out of this form is our reading. This account rests on the abstract, the reprint's chapter title, and snippets of Mintzberg's 1989 chapter; the full text, which holds the structural changes, was not read.
Source: Mintzberg and Waters 1982. Tracking strategy in an entrepreneurial firm, Academy of Management Journal 25(3), 465 to 499; reprinted in Family Business Review 3(3), 285 to 315, 1990; one case study of a single firm over 60 years.
Variants and near relatives
Autocracy is Mintzberg's (1984) power configuration that corresponds to the simple structure: a passive external coalition, with power held by the chief executive.
Two near relatives are taught under the machine bureaucracy. The Aston taxonomy, Workflow, personnel, and full bureaucracy (Pugh and others 1969, a multi-organization comparative survey), ends in a class of implicitly structured organizations; the simple structure is that class's nearest form. Patrimonial administration, Weber's type, which Scott and Davis (2007) picture as a household writ large, is a ruler-owner's estate or production organization. On our reading, it differs from this form as a type of rule, not a way of coordinating work.
The functional structure, its nearest neighbor, groups people by specialty; the simple structure coordinates through one person with little or no grouping, so the leader's attention is the structure.
The simple structure beside its nearest neighbor, the functional structure
Select a number to fill what it marks in both drawings; the list under them gives the dimensions on which the two profiles differ.
It coordinates through one person, with little or no grouping. With no layer of function heads, the leader's attention is the structure.
Simple structure
Reports toDDirect supervision
- Operators in the simple structure work under the leader's direct supervision, with no function heads and at most a loose grouping by function; the functional structure sets each kind of work in a unit under its own head.
- Direct supervision by the leader is the simple structure's prime coordinating mechanism; in the functional structure, standardized work inside each function joins the chief executive's direct supervision.
Differs on 6 of 11 dimensions
- Specialization Low; Functional structure: Medium to high
- Standardization and formalization Low; Functional structure: Medium
- Layers and span of control Flat; Functional structure: Moderate
- Prime coordinating mechanism Direct supervision; Functional structure: Direct supervision and standardization of work processes
- Differentiation against integration Low differentiation, light integration; Functional structure: Low differentiation, light integration to moderate differentiation, some integrating roles
- Boundary permeability Closed to selective; Functional structure: Closed
One person sits at the top of each. In the simple structure most communication runs between the leader and everyone else, and any grouping is loose, while the functional structure sets people in units by the kind of work they do, each under a head who reports to the chief executive.
Source: Mintzberg 1980, a synthesis of earlier research, offering propositions without a new test; Fayol 1949; Taylor 1911; Williamson 1975.
Moving into or out of it
Burton and Obel (2004) say growth may call for decentralization, new administrative positions, and more specialization and formalization, at some cost in flexibility. Where Greiner (1972) sees a crisis, Donaldson (1995) holds that misfit lowers performance and prompts incremental adjustment toward fit.
Greiner's five phases of growth, each ended by a crisis
Each box names a phase and, after its colon, the crisis that ends it; select a phase to read where a form in this series meets it. Greiner's is a conceptual model with no systematic test, and DeSantola, Gulati, and Zhelyazkov (2023) found young ventures following divergent paths, not one sequence.
Select a phase to read where a form in this series meets it.Phase 1. Creativity, the first phase, is led by founders and ends in a crisis of leadership. It is the phase of the simple structure, run by one leader, often the founder or owner.Phase 2. Under Direction, functions come in as the firm grows past its founders, which brings it from a simple structure into the functional form after the founders' crisis of leadership. Jobs grow specialized, budgets and work standards are adopted, and communication grows formal and impersonal, so on this series' reading organizations may grow toward the machine bureaucracy here. The phase ends in a crisis of autonomy.Phase 3. Delegation ends in a crisis of control. The line and staff page reads the coordination phase that follows as a headquarters above the units this phase delegated to, more than advisers beside one line.Phase 4. In Coordination, decentralized units are merged into product groups, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply until the phase ends in a crisis of red tape. The line and staff form's ratings for size and age draw on this phase's headquarters staff.Phase 5. Collaboration: a matrix-type structure comes in, though Greiner's later commentary confines it largely to senior management, and the commentary has fewer consulting experts replacing control-oriented staff. Greiner marked the crisis ending this phase with a question mark in 1972, guessing at employees' psychological saturation; his later commentary calls that guess wrong and names a crisis of finding no internal solution for further growth.
- Phase 1. Creativity, the first phase, is led by founders and ends in a crisis of leadership. It is the phase of the simple structure, run by one leader, often the founder or owner.
- Phase 2. Under Direction, functions come in as the firm grows past its founders, which brings it from a simple structure into the functional form after the founders' crisis of leadership. Jobs grow specialized, budgets and work standards are adopted, and communication grows formal and impersonal, so on this series' reading organizations may grow toward the machine bureaucracy here. The phase ends in a crisis of autonomy.
- Phase 3. Delegation ends in a crisis of control. The line and staff page reads the coordination phase that follows as a headquarters above the units this phase delegated to, more than advisers beside one line.
- Phase 4. In Coordination, decentralized units are merged into product groups, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply until the phase ends in a crisis of red tape. The line and staff form's ratings for size and age draw on this phase's headquarters staff.
- Phase 5. Collaboration: a matrix-type structure comes in, though Greiner's later commentary confines it largely to senior management, and the commentary has fewer consulting experts replacing control-oriented staff. Greiner marked the crisis ending this phase with a question mark in 1972, guessing at employees' psychological saturation; his later commentary calls that guess wrong and names a crisis of finding no internal solution for further growth.
Greiner's model opens with the founder-led phase of the simple structure; functions, specialized jobs, and work standards come in second, and formal systems and headquarters staff multiply over product groups in the fourth, the phase the line and staff page draws on. He calls the phases approximations drawn from case histories, and his later commentary replaces his 1972 guess at the crisis that ends the fifth.
Source: Greiner 1972, a conceptual model with no systematic test; DeSantola and colleagues 2023, a longitudinal quantitative study of thousands of young ventures.
Research on scaling holds two narratives: endurance and dramatic change (DeSantola and Gulati 2017, a review of earlier research, with no new data). Baron, Hannan, and Burton (1999), in one region's technology start-ups only, stand on the endurance side. Hannan and Freeman (1984) argue that attempts at reorganization raise death rates, while Amburgey, Kelly, and Barnett (1993, a quantitative study of organizational change and failure rates) found the effect of change on the hazard of failure varies by type of change and over time.
Threat may pull organizations toward the form for a while, a tendency, not a fit (Mintzberg 1980, on laboratory evidence; Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton 1981, a review of earlier evidence at several levels, with no new data), though a six-year study of 334 institutions of higher education found centralization affected by turbulence, not by decline (Cameron, Kim, and Whetten 1987).
For running the reorganization, see Change & Transformation.
The thinking behind it
Henry Mintzberg (born 1939) supplies the form: in Structure in 5's (1980) the strategic apex coordinates by direct supervision in a minimally elaborated, highly centralized structure.
Larry E. Greiner (1933 to 2013), in Evolution and revolution as organizations grow (1972), described growth through phases each ending in a crisis: one account of how organizations leave this form.
Richard M. Burton (born 1939) and Børge Obel (born 1948) built the multi-contingency model behind most of this form's fit ratings and rules; the edition cited is the third, Strategic organizational diagnosis and design (2004).
Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1933 to 2018), in Social structure and organizations (1965), argued that new organizations fail more often and tend to keep their founding structures once these are institutionalized, later called imprinting, which bears on this form's youth and small size.
Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman, in Structural inertia and organizational change (1984), argued that selection favors highly inert structures and that inertia rises with age, which bears on any move out.
Also called
Entrepreneurial structure, owner-managed structure, and entrepreneurial organization, Mintzberg's (1989) term. Personal enterprise is the first of the four fundamental forms among the seven of Mintzberg's 2023 revision, and of the four his 2024 article names; no source read says it is the simple structure renamed. The match is by elimination: Adinolfi and Rebora (2024) map three other renamed forms to their earlier names, and they and Chahin (2023) tie the personal enterprise to the force of consolidation.
Works cited
- Adinolfi and Rebora 2024. Capire le organizzazioni, oggi! Capire le organizzazioni... alla buon'ora! 7 forme e 7 forze di Henry Mintzberg (book-review rubric, with responses by several scholars and a reply by Mintzberg), Rubric 'Capire le organizzazioni, oggi!' in the section 'Letture e riletture' of a bimonthly periodical, issue dated 04-2024, pages 64 to 72 (the clipping does not print the masthead; Rebora is named as director of Sviluppo&Organizzazione, the likely venue, which no independent page confirmed).
- Ahrne and Brunsson 2008. Meta-organizations, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
- Amburgey and colleagues 1993. Resetting the clock: the dynamics of organizational change and failure, Administrative Science Quarterly 38(1), from p. 51; a quantitative study of organizational change and failure rates.
- Aoki 1986. Horizontal vs. vertical information structure of the firm, American Economic Review 76(5), 971 to 983; a formal economic model.
- Armour and Teece 1978. Organizational structure and economic performance: a test of the multidivisional hypothesis, Bell Journal of Economics 9(1), 106 to 122; a multi-firm statistical study in one industry.
- Ashkenas and colleagues 1995. The Boundaryless Organization: Breaking the Chains of Organizational Structure, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
- Astley and Van de Ven 1983. Central perspectives and debates in organization theory, Administrative Science Quarterly 28(2), from p. 245.
- Baron and colleagues 1999. Building the iron cage: determinants of managerial intensity in the early years of organizations, American Sociological Review 64(4), 527 to 547; a longitudinal study of many young firms.
- Beekun 1989. Assessing the effectiveness of sociotechnical interventions: antidote or fad?, Human Relations 42(10), 877 to 897; a meta-analysis of 17 studies.
- Brandstätter and Graf-Vlachy 2026. Strategic leadership and organizational design: a review and research agenda, Journal of Organization Design 15(3), 165 to 210.
- Braverman 1974. Labor and monopoly capital: the degradation of work in the twentieth century, Monthly Review Press, New York; the linked publisher's page is the 1998 twenty-fifth anniversary edition.
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- Burdín 2014. Are worker-managed firms more likely to fail than conventional enterprises? Evidence from Uruguay, ILR Review 67(1), 202 to 238; a survival study of many firms in one country.
- Burns and Stalker 1961. The Management of Innovation, Tavistock Publications, London (first edition 1961); the DOI is for the Oxford University Press revised edition of 1994; a field study of twenty firms.
- Burton and colleagues 2002. Return on assets loss from situational and contingency misfits, Management Science 48(11), 1461 to 1485; a quantitative study of 224 Danish small and medium-sized firms.
- Burton and colleagues 2015b. Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach, Cambridge University Press (third edition; hardback ISBN 978-1-107-09765-0, paperback ISBN 978-1-107-48361-3).
- Burton and colleagues 2020a. Organizational design: a step-by-step approach (fourth edition), Cambridge University Press.
- Burton and Obel 2004. Strategic organizational diagnosis and design: the dynamics of fit, Kluwer Academic Publishers (third edition).
- Cameron and colleagues 1987. Organizational Effects of Decline and Turbulence, Administrative Science Quarterly 32(2), from p. 222; a six-year study of 334 institutions of higher education.
- Carey 1967. The Hawthorne studies: a radical criticism, American Sociological Review 32(3), 403 to 416.
- Carney and colleagues 2011. Business group affiliation, performance, context, and strategy: a meta-analysis, Academy of Management Journal 54(3), 437 to 460; a meta-analysis of 141 studies in 28 countries.
- Carroll and Hannan 2000. The demography of corporations and industries, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
- Chahin 2023. Understanding organizations... Finally! Structuring in sevens (book review), Ciencias Administrativas 11(22), e126 (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).
- Chandler 1962. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (xiv and 463 pages); several independent case histories by a historian.
- Child 1972a. Organizational structure, environment and performance: the role of strategic choice, Sociology 6(1), 1 to 22.
- Child and Mansfield 1972. Technology, size, and organization structure, Sociology 6(3), 369 to 393; a multi-firm comparative study.
- Coase 1937. The nature of the firm, Economica 4(16), 386 to 405 (November 1937).
- Colfer and Baldwin 2016. The mirroring hypothesis: theory, evidence, and exceptions, Industrial and Corporate Change 25(5), 709 to 738; a review of 142 empirical studies.
- Covin and Slevin 1989. Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments, Strategic Management Journal 10(1), 75 to 87; a survey of 161 small manufacturers.
- Crozier 1963. Le phénomène bureaucratique: essai sur les tendances bureaucratiques des systèmes d'organisation modernes et sur leurs relations en France avec le système social et culturel, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 414 pages; English translation The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, University of Chicago Press and Tavistock, 1964 (Crozier 1964).
- Crozier 1964. The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; Tavistock, London; two case studies by a scholar.
- Crozier and Friedberg 1977. L'acteur et le système: les contraintes de l'action collective, Éditions du Seuil, Paris (Sociologie politique series); English translation Actors and Systems: The Politics of Collective Action, University of Chicago Press, 1980 (Crozier and Friedberg 1980).
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