Organizational design: A contingency approach: A model for organic management design

For those firms that operate in a stable environment—an unchanging technology and a certain market—a mechanistic management system is efficient. A great many corporations, however, must have a flexible organizational structure, which can adapt to constant changes in technology and fluctuations in the market. These firms are often characterized by their organic approach to management design. In this article, the authors develop a model for organizational design based on the variables of internal needs and external conditions and illustrate their model with nationally known firms as examples. The model's quadrants are: high uncertainty/low integration; high uncertainty/high integration; high certainty/low integration; and high certainty/high integration.