New Ways of Organizing

This book is about integral organizing. Organizations face major challenges in terms of innovation, customer focus, flexibility, productivity, and finding and retaining talent. Technical innovations in and of themselves can only address such challenges to a limited extent. Attention to culture and behaviour, in and of itself, also has its limitations. Social innovation relates to the integral development and renewal of the organisation. Many organizations, however, are based on persistent bureaucratic organizational principles that are outdated. New ways of organizing offer sustainable solutions for the limitations and dysfunctions that cling to traditionally structured organizations. We are not under the illusion that a few quick fixes and quick wins will provide the solution to all of today’s organizational problems. The first part of this book is therefore aimed at getting to the bottom of how organisations operate. Why do organisations function as they do under certain conditions? Why do people behave the way they do under certain conditions? A fundamental understanding of the problems of organizations is a prerequisite for sustainable solutions. In finding structural solutions to organizational problems, as discussed in the second part of this book, an organization’s strategy serves as the main guide. The basic starting point for realizing organizational design is the primary process and its requirements. Moreover, in an integral organization, solutions are not fixed in advance; the purpose is to find design solutions that are tailored to the particularities of each organization. In this context, we deal with an integral design chain that provides support in establishing solutions for specific, real-life situations. This book is a translation of the Dutch version of Het Nieuwe Organiseren, first published in 2010. Its content has been thoroughly used by professors and lecturers since the very first edition, and their feedback has been taken into account with this newly translated revision. The scope of the discussion of certain themes has been narrowed, and new themes and cases have been added in order to bring more clarity to the structure of the book. Ideas about the network regime have been expanded into two new chapters which include current trends such as Agile, Scrum and the ‘exponential’ organization, as well as the socio-technical perspective. New Ways of Organizing is written for students, practitioners, and organizational experts who want to take the necessary time to delve into the functioning of organizations within the context of their structure, and want to help think about sustainable social innovation. HERMAN KUIPERS is Professor Emeritus of Sociotechnics at Eindhoven University of Technology and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Psychology at the Royal Military Academy in Breda. PIERRE VAN AMELSVOORT has been involved in integral organizational renewal projects throughout various industries in Belgium and the Netherlands since 1982. He is also a professor by special appointment of Social Innovation at KU Leuven. ERIC-HANS KRAMER is the Professor of Military Organization and Management at the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda since September 2018.