Purpose-driven transformation: a holistic organization design framework for integrating societal goals into companies

Rebecca Elliott Carballo ()
Additional contact information
Rebecca Elliott Carballo: University of Geneva

Journal of Organization Design, 2023, vol. 12, issue 4, 195-215

Abstract: Abstract Companies today are increasingly called upon to address society’s issues, such as climate change and inequality, but traditional companies are not up to the task as they are designed primarily for profit maximization. Addressing society’s issues requires companies to societally hybridize, meaning introducing societal goals alongside profit goals thereby transitioning to a deeper societal impact commitment. However, extant literature predominantly considers born hybrid organizations and discusses specific design elements or types of hybrid design. Drawing on social–commercial hybrid organization and organization design literatures, this conceptual paper takes a dynamic view of social–commercial hybridity. This paper proposes a framework delineating four stages of societal hybridization based on the degree to which a traditional company realigns its design to pursue dual goals. The paper has practical and theoretical implications with contributions to social–commercial hybrid organization and organization design theories by demonstrating how redesign can enable a company to successfully integrate societal goals and improve multidimensional organizational performance.

Keywords: Hybrid organizations; Organization design; Star model; Hybridization; Societal impact; Organization purpose; Purpose-driven company (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M1 M10 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41469-023-00156-8 Abstract (text/html)

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:spr:jorgde:v:12:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s41469-023-00156-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41469

DOI: 10.1007/s41469-023-00156-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Organization Design is currently edited by Børge Obel and Charles C. Snow

More articles in Journal of Organization Design from Springer, Organizational Design Community
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().