The Role of Interdependence in the Microfoundations of Organization Design: Task, Goal, and Knowledge Interdependence

Marlo  Raveendran (formerly Goetting); Luciana  Silvestri; Ranjay  Gulati

Article | Academy of Management Annals | July 2020

The Role of Interdependence in the Microfoundations of Organization Design: Task, Goal, and Knowledge Interdependence

by Marlo Raveendran (formerly Goetting), Luciana Silvestri and Ranjay Gulati

Abstract

Interdependence is a core concept in organization design, yet one that has remained consistently understudied. Current notions of interdependence remain rooted in seminal works, produced at a time when managers’ near-perfect understanding of the task at hand drove the organization design process. In this context, task interdependence was rightly assumed to be exogenously determined by characteristics of the work and the technology. We no longer live in that world, yet our view of interdependence has remained exceedingly task-centric and our treatment of interdependence overly deterministic. As organizations face increasingly unpredictable workstreams and workers co-design the organization alongside managers, our field requires a more comprehensive toolbox that incorporates aspects of agent-based interdependence. In this paper, we synthesize research in organization design, organizational behavior, and other related literatures to examine three types of interdependence that characterize organizations’ workflows: task, goal, and knowledge interdependence. We offer clear definitions for each construct, analyze how each arises endogenously in the design process, explore their interrelations, and pose questions to guide future research.

Keywords: interdependence; organizational behavior; work design; Organizational Design; Goals and Objectives; Knowledge Sharing;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Raveendran (formerly Goetting), Marlo, Luciana Silvestri, and Ranjay Gulati. "The Role of Interdependence in the Microfoundations of Organization Design: Task, Goal, and Knowledge Interdependence." Academy of Management Annals 14, no. 2 (July 2020): 828–868.

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The Role of Interdependence in the Microfoundations of Organization Design: Task, Goal, and Knowledge Interdependence

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