MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
Organisation Design – Summary
2025/2026
Lecture 1
1. What is Organisation Design?
Organisation Design is about making deliberate choices about how work is organised in
order to achieve intended outcomes.
From the lecture:
Designing = making choices about function, form, and structure with an intended effect
What exactly do we design?
In OD, we design:
Structure (who does what, who decides)
Division of labour
Coordination mechanisms
Rules, procedures, hierarchy
Degree of specialisation
All of these shape:
Performance
Quality
Employee stress
Innovation capacity
Principle 1: Hierarchy & Centralisation
What it means
Decisions are concentrated at the top
Control via rules, procedures, supervision
Lower levels execute, upper levels decide
This comes straight from Taylorism and bureaucracy.
Why organisations use it
Predictability
Control
1
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
Standardisation
Efficiency in stable environments
Problem
Top cannot know everything
Rules cannot cover all exceptions
Decision-making becomes slow
Employees lose autonomy
Principle 2: Specialisation
What it means
Work is split into:
Small, narrow tasks
Functional departments (HR, finance, production, etc.)
This idea goes back to Adam Smith and later Taylor.
Benefits
Economies of scale
Efficiency
Expertise
Lower training costs
Van Hootegem explicitly says:
The traditional organisation was hugely successful in the 20th century
Problems of excessive specialisation
Fragmentation
No overview of the whole process
Many handovers → errors
Customer is nobody’s responsibility
Employees feel alienated
Classic metaphor: Silos that optimise themselves but harm the whole system
2. Changing organisational environment
Three pressures
2
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
1. Demographic
2. Economic
3. Societal
Van Hootegem frames this as a shift from:
SSST (Stable, Secure, Simple, Transparent)
→ VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous)
A. Demographic Pressures (The "War for Talent")
The Aging Population: As the workforce ages, there are fewer young people entering
the market.
Labor Market Tightness: In many sectors (especially healthcare), demand for
workers exceeds supply.
Retention: Organizations must design "manageable work" to keep employees
healthy and motivated for longer careers.
B. Economic Pressures: The Shift to VUCA
Traditional designs worked in stable environments. However, modern markets are VUCA:
Volatile: Rapid, unpredictable changes.
Uncertain: Lack of clarity about the future.
Complex: Many moving parts and interdependencies.
Ambiguous: Unfamiliar environments where cause-and-effect are unclear.
C. Societal & Customer Pressures
Cumulative Demands: Organizations used to focus only on Productivity. Now, they
must simultaneously master Quality, Flexibility, Innovation, Sustainability, and
Workability.
Customer Centricity: Modern customers demand personalized, high-quality, and fast
service, which "siloed" functional organizations struggle to provide.
Van Hootegem argues: these are structural problems, wrongly interpreted as behavioural
ones
3. Quality of Work & Karasek Model
Stress depends on:
Job demands
Job control (decision latitude)
3
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
High demands + low control = high strain jobs
High demands + high control = active jobs
Van Hootegem uses this to show:
Functional organisations → high strain
Redesign → more active jobs
4. Introduction to Total Workplace Innovation (TWIN)
This is the bridge to the rest of the course.
Core idea of TWIN: Organise differently to work better; fully focus on the customer AND the
employee
Traditional organisation:
Looks inward
Groups similar activities
TWIN:
Looks outward
Groups customers/orders
Designs end-to-end responsibility
Order-based vs functional organisation
Instead of:
HR → Production → Quality → Logistics
TWIN creates:
Parallel order streams
Autonomous, multidisciplinary teams
Minimal interdependence
This reduces complexity inside the organisation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4
Organisation Design – Summary
2025/2026
Lecture 1
1. What is Organisation Design?
Organisation Design is about making deliberate choices about how work is organised in
order to achieve intended outcomes.
From the lecture:
Designing = making choices about function, form, and structure with an intended effect
What exactly do we design?
In OD, we design:
Structure (who does what, who decides)
Division of labour
Coordination mechanisms
Rules, procedures, hierarchy
Degree of specialisation
All of these shape:
Performance
Quality
Employee stress
Innovation capacity
Principle 1: Hierarchy & Centralisation
What it means
Decisions are concentrated at the top
Control via rules, procedures, supervision
Lower levels execute, upper levels decide
This comes straight from Taylorism and bureaucracy.
Why organisations use it
Predictability
Control
1
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
Standardisation
Efficiency in stable environments
Problem
Top cannot know everything
Rules cannot cover all exceptions
Decision-making becomes slow
Employees lose autonomy
Principle 2: Specialisation
What it means
Work is split into:
Small, narrow tasks
Functional departments (HR, finance, production, etc.)
This idea goes back to Adam Smith and later Taylor.
Benefits
Economies of scale
Efficiency
Expertise
Lower training costs
Van Hootegem explicitly says:
The traditional organisation was hugely successful in the 20th century
Problems of excessive specialisation
Fragmentation
No overview of the whole process
Many handovers → errors
Customer is nobody’s responsibility
Employees feel alienated
Classic metaphor: Silos that optimise themselves but harm the whole system
2. Changing organisational environment
Three pressures
2
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
1. Demographic
2. Economic
3. Societal
Van Hootegem frames this as a shift from:
SSST (Stable, Secure, Simple, Transparent)
→ VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous)
A. Demographic Pressures (The "War for Talent")
The Aging Population: As the workforce ages, there are fewer young people entering
the market.
Labor Market Tightness: In many sectors (especially healthcare), demand for
workers exceeds supply.
Retention: Organizations must design "manageable work" to keep employees
healthy and motivated for longer careers.
B. Economic Pressures: The Shift to VUCA
Traditional designs worked in stable environments. However, modern markets are VUCA:
Volatile: Rapid, unpredictable changes.
Uncertain: Lack of clarity about the future.
Complex: Many moving parts and interdependencies.
Ambiguous: Unfamiliar environments where cause-and-effect are unclear.
C. Societal & Customer Pressures
Cumulative Demands: Organizations used to focus only on Productivity. Now, they
must simultaneously master Quality, Flexibility, Innovation, Sustainability, and
Workability.
Customer Centricity: Modern customers demand personalized, high-quality, and fast
service, which "siloed" functional organizations struggle to provide.
Van Hootegem argues: these are structural problems, wrongly interpreted as behavioural
ones
3. Quality of Work & Karasek Model
Stress depends on:
Job demands
Job control (decision latitude)
3
, MAN-BCU360 - Introduction to Organisation Design
High demands + low control = high strain jobs
High demands + high control = active jobs
Van Hootegem uses this to show:
Functional organisations → high strain
Redesign → more active jobs
4. Introduction to Total Workplace Innovation (TWIN)
This is the bridge to the rest of the course.
Core idea of TWIN: Organise differently to work better; fully focus on the customer AND the
employee
Traditional organisation:
Looks inward
Groups similar activities
TWIN:
Looks outward
Groups customers/orders
Designs end-to-end responsibility
Order-based vs functional organisation
Instead of:
HR → Production → Quality → Logistics
TWIN creates:
Parallel order streams
Autonomous, multidisciplinary teams
Minimal interdependence
This reduces complexity inside the organisation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4
