Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2

The Star Model

Strategic organization design began with Alfred Chandler's Strategy and Structure (1962). Since that time, the topic has been expanded beyond structure to include several other factors: information and decision processes, reward systems, and people practices that make up the human resources function. Collectively they define what we mean by organization. In this chapter, I place those factors into the Star Model and describe their interactions. In so doing, I define what we mean by organization design.

The Origins of the Star Model

I created the Star Model on the basis of my experiences in trying to apply information and decision processes. My initial training was in the areas of production and inventory control. In 1967 ...