The Knowledge Base Of Organizational Design Theory

As Peter Drucker pointed out, there were no more substantive and violent social changes in human history than in twenty century. It is just these ongoing and inspiring social changes and corporate practices that attract my attention to this subject. The fundamental problem of this dissertation is exploring the underlying mechanism that how the knowledge generated in actors' social practice influences or determinates the characteristics and forms of organizational structure, on the basis of which a new knowledge-based theory of organizational design is proposed.Classical organization theory fundamentally centers on the division of tasks and their subsequent integration through co-ordination. The early contributions aimed at finding the universal principles behind an effective organizational design. Conflicting with classical organization theory, the contingency scholars argued that there is no one most effective organizational design suitable hi all situations. Depending on circumstances, several designs may lead to the same performance level. The most common approaches mean that organizational size, technology or environmental conditions have an impact on the effectiveness of a certain design. Controversies sparked around the contingency variables presented have lessened the belief that size, technology or environmental conditions in themselves suffice to explain variations in organizational design among firms. There have been at least two approaches to amend this problem: either by combining several variables to form a more complex model, or by trying to identify underlying variables, the reasons for which size, technology and environment seem to cause structural differences. Our principal argument that variations in organizational design can be explained by the nature of the knowledge system it employs in transforming input to output. The most efficient mode of organizing these activities will vary depending on the structure and specific characteristics of the knowledge system of the firm.Most research literatures at present, however, focus on the organizational changes required by effective knowledge management from KM perspective, most objects that they discuss are knowledge enterprises. But they do not address the internal mechanism of organizational design of general enterprises. On the basis of the generalization and systematization of the knowledge-based theory of the firm, beginning with the debate of the nature and characteristics of knowledge, we discuss the relation between knowledge and organizational factors and the characteristics oforganizational structure, proposing a new model of organizational design. Then we apply this model to explain the main type of forms of organizational structure and organizational design theories before at practical and theoretic level. The general framework and important views of the dissertation are as follow:Chapter 1 addresses the firm organization as an effective institution of knowledge acquisition, application and protection from economic view. As long as bounded rationality exists, the generation of the firm is necessary and evitable. That the firm is considered as a kind of knowledge substitution mechanism and a kind of knowledge coordination mechanism indicates the firm is more effective in knowledge acquisition, application and innovation than the market. And that the firm is seen as a kind of knowledge protection mechanism shows it is more effective in knowledge storage and protection than the market.Chapter 2 discusses the nature and characteristics of personal and organizational knowledge from sociological view. Knowledge is essentially both personal and collective. The essence of the firm as a knowledge system is that the firm provides a place or interactive situation for knowledge acquisition, storage, application and protection.Chapter 3 focuses on the relations between knowledge and organizations. On the basis of Leavitt's Diamond model of organizational factors, a six-factor model of organizations is proposed. The stock and struc...