Modeling Organizational Design - Applying A Formalism Model From Theoretical Physics Cover Image

Modeling Organizational Design - Applying A Formalism Model From Theoretical Physics
Modeling Organizational Design - Applying A Formalism Model From Theoretical Physics

Author(s): Robert Fabac, Josip Stepanić
Subject(s): Economy
Published by: Fakultet organizacije i informatike, Sveučilište u Zagrebu
Keywords: adaptation; organizational design; Galbraith's Star Model; model variables; resources; social entropy; social free energy; social temperature;

Summary/Abstract: Modern organizations are exposed to diverse external environment influences. Currently accepted concepts of organizational design take into account structure, its interaction with strategy, processes, people, etc. Organization design and planning aims to align this key organizational design variables. At the higher conceptual level, however, completely satisfactory formulation for this alignment doesn’t exist. We develop an approach originating from the application of concepts of theoretical physics to social systems. Under this approach, the allocation of organizational resources is analyzed in terms of social entropy, social free energy and social temperature. This allows us to formalize the dynamic relationship between organizational design variables. In this paper we relate this model to Galbraith's Star Model and we also suggest improvements in the procedure of the complex analytical method in organizational design.

  • Issue Year: 32/2008
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 25-32
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: English