Optimise How You Organise. Towards a Systematic Evaluation of Organisational Alternatives

Choosing the best possible organisational structure is among the most momentous organisational decisions to be taken at the corporate level of a business company or other institution. The present article proposes a systematic procedure for evaluating organisational alternatives that aims to do justice to the relevant economic, social and flexibility-related aspects. On this approach, first, the suitability in principle in the light of the overarching strategies and objectives of each alternative (its effectiveness) is appraised. Second, the degree of fulfilment of a specific set of criteria by each alternative (its efficiency) is assessed. The proposal rests both on the current wisdom as represented in the literature and on decades of experience on the part of the authors as actual practitioners of organisational design