Designing Organizations that Design Environments: Lessons from Entrepreneurial Expertise

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Author
Sarasvathy, Saras D.
Dew, Nicholas
Read, Stuart
Wiltbank, Robert
Date
2008Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Human artifacts lie on the interface between their inner environments and their outer environments.
Organizations, therefore, are apt subjects to be studied through a science of the
artificial. Furthermore, organizational design happens at two interfaces: first, at the interface
between organizational founder(s) and the firms they design, and second, between
the firms and the environments in which they operate. We use recent developments in the
study of entrepreneurial expertise to show why an effectual logic of design is necessary at
the first interface, and what its consequences are for designing at the second. In particular,
we use the exemplar case of Starbucks to codify three key characteristics of the design
problem at the first interface — namely, Knightian uncertainty, goal ambiguity and environmental
isotropy. We then use an ‘alternate histories’ method to trace four strategic
options — namely, planning, adaptation, vision and transformation — for designing at the
second interface. In the final analysis, organizational design is important because effectuators
using transformational approaches not only design organizations, but concurrently
end up designing the environments we live in.
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840607088017
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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