Business firms around the world are experimenting with new organizational designs, changing their formal architectures,
their routines and processes, and their corporate cultures as they seek to improve their current performance and
their growth prospects. In the process they are changing the scope of their business operations, redrawing their
organization charts, redefining the allocation of decision-making authority and responsibility, revamping the mechanisms
for motivating and rewarding people, reconsidering which activities to conduct in-house and which to out-source,
redesigning their information systems, and seeking to alter the shared beliefs, values and norms that their people
hold.
In this book, John Roberts argues that there are predictable, necessary relationships among these changes that
will improve performance and growth. The organizations that are successful will establish patterns of fit among
the elements of their organizational designs, their competitive strategies and the external environment in which
they operate and will go about this in a holistic manner.
The Modern Firm develops powerful conceptual frameworks for analyzing the interrelations between organizational
design features, competitive strategy and the business environment. Written in a non-technical language, the book
is nevertheless based on rigorous modeling and draws on numerous examples from eighteenth century fur trading companies
to such modern firms such as BP and Nokia. Finally the book explores why these developments are happening now,
pointing to the increase in global competition and changes in technology.
Written by one of the world's leading economists and experts thatwill improve performance and growth. The organizations
that are successful will establish patterns of fit among the elements of their organizational designs, their competitive
strategies and the external environment in which they operate and will go about this in a holistic manner.
Table of Contents
Preface
1 Strategy and organization
2 Key concepts for organization design
3 The nature and purpose of the firm
4 Motivation in the modern firm
5 Organizing for performance
6 Organizing for growth and innovation
7 Creating the modern firm : management and leadership challenges
References
Index
