The liberated company theoretical concept: current issues and the intimidating complexity of organizational design

The “liberated company” (LC) theoretical concept has risen in prominence in French-language research and has been the focus of two systematic literature reviews. Yet, despite over a dozen LC studies in English, it has received little attention internationally. The present paper aims to fill this gap by presenting the background to the LC theoretical concept and by examining five research issues in particular that have emerged since 2009 when the concept was first introduced. Thus, in our view, the most pressing issues are the definition of the LC concept, whether it is a management theory or a model, LC’s contribution to leadership fields, sources and proximate theories with regard to LC, and how to evaluate the concept’s usefulness to organizations. The discussion section builds on the examination of these issues to update the definition of LC. It further discusses how LC can meet the “intimidating complexity of design” challenge and how the impact of the LC concept on the organizational transformation practice can be enhanced.