The Hypothesis of Organization Design as Meaning—The Organization Design Gestalt

At the highest level of abstraction, organization design-as-meaning takes the form of a cultural construction. It is the site where the quality of interactions, as well as the effectiveness of the formal and informal organizational structures are achieved. A gestalt is perceptual by definition, but when applied to the social-material realm of organization design, the design gestalt acquires a cultural, meaning-making capacity, which is a reflection of and is reflected in all manifestations of the organization’s design. The organization design gestalt is formed by cognitive and symbolic meanings, as well as non-cognitive sensations, such as emotion and affect. The concept of organizational experience is also central to our concept of the organization design gestalt. When stakeholders interact directly with artefacts or indirectly by means of interactions with other stakeholders, who are in one or another affected by organizational artefacts, they experience the organization. For example, when a customer talks to after-sales services, she has indirect interaction with an organizational artefact in the form of the computer application(s) and the host of company procedures that the after-sales employee needs to utilize in order to provide the service. Thus, the experience of the after-sales service is a consequence of the host of ethic-aesthetic judgements made by the customer in that particular interaction with the company. Hence, through the values and principles it encapsulates, and the behaviours it promotes, the organization design gestalt shapes organizational experiences.