Do Business Well

The majority of people who work from home, whether they be working for giant corporations or in one-man bands, work by themselves. On the one hand, that means they are extremely efficient — no interruptions, no joking during meetings, no office politicking around the coffee machine, or gossiping in the lunch break — but it also means that homeworkers can feel terribly alone and isolated.

`I found that working six hours a day at home was worth more than eight in the office,’ says Emma Dally, now Publishing Director for The National Magazine Company. ‘There are so few interruptions that you are able to work very intensively.’ Continue Reading »

5 Comments »

Since the pioneering work of Burns and Stalker (1961), it has been accepted that unpredictable market and technological environments may require ‘organic‘ organizational structures rather than the more traditional ‘mechanistic’ forms best suited to more stable conditions.

• An example of a ‘mechanistic’ structure would be the hierarchical and functionally divided arrangements still common in long-established organizations such as banks.
• An example of an ‘organic‘ structure would be the creation of flexible cross-functional project teams within a firm to develop specific new products as the occasion demands.

The assumption is that organic structures can generate a high degree of ‘fit’ between the external environment and the internal organizational form. However, the scenario of organic structures enabling ‘matching’ to take place with changing external conditions is increasingly problematic for several reasons:

• The capacity to ‘read’ the requirements of the external environment is seen as relatively straightforward.
• The boundary between the external environment and the organization is assumed to be clear and distinct.
• The achievement of optimum ‘fit’ is regarded as a stable and sustainable configuration.

Continue Reading »

6 Comments »