Foundations of Holistic Organization Design

This chapter introduces the model of holistic organization design, which is made up of three components: the hypothesis of organization design-as-meaning, the epistemological background of non-representational thought and the normative triad of morality, collaboration and purpose. The first two components are discussed in this chapter, while the hypothesis of organization design-as-meaning is examined in Chapter  7 . The epistemology of non-representational thought provides a number of tools for understanding organization design as it happens, through the daily actions of the organization’s members. Aesthetics offers an alternative way of making meanings, which influences the way people interact, behave and understand in the organization. The aesthetics and ethics components are linked mainly by the notion of reflective practices (Dobson 2022), which is the result of an elaboration of MacIntyre’s (After Virtue. Duckworth, London, 2007) virtue ethics framework. This provides the background for the normative triad of morality, collaboration and purpose, originally inspired by the managerial theory of organization put forward by Barnard (The Functions of the Executive. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1938). The triad forms a recurrent system of causes and effects, which guides all organization designing activity in the organization. The relationship between organization design and the organization’s stated purpose is very relevant not only because organization design can be an enabler of or inhibitor to the attainment of organizational purpose, but also because it acts as a mirror of organizational purpose.