Complex hierarchy: The strategic advantages of a trade-off between hierarchical supervision and self-organizing

Philippe Accard

European Management Journal, 2015, vol. 33, issue 2, 89-103

Abstract: This paper presents two case studies of research labs in which changes implemented in hierarchical structures differ from the delayering and downsizing reported by current empirical works. In both labs, authority relationships between superiors and subordinates relaxed and became indirect and recursive. Then, together, superiors and subordinates engaged in self-organizing processes and produced structures that had emergent characteristics. The hierarchical structures that were produced exhibited the characteristics of complex organization structures. The conceptualization of these changes, developed in this paper, provides a better understanding of hierarchical structures and authority in complex organization. It invites a reconsideration of the idea that hierarchy inevitably hinders organizational change, and it indicates possibilities for a trade-off between hierarchic supervision and self-organizing. This trade-off provides strategic advantages by helping managers develop organization capacity for learning, innovating, and performing adaptive changes.

Keywords: Structures; Complexity; Hierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237314000826
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:33:y:2015:i:2:p:89-103

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2014.07.004

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().