How Mercedes-Benz addresses digital transformation using Holacracy

The Role of Hierarchy in Realizing Collective Leadership in a Self-Managing Organization

This article is about leadership in a self-managing organization. Empirically, it is grounded in a participatory action research study stretching over two years, oriented around the following question: how does instances of hierarchical leadership and collective leadership interact across different dimensions of power in a self-managing organization? The article concludes that although this self-managing organization is largely governed in the day-to-day through collective leadership, this outcome still relies on hierarchical management of discourse and the processes which replace authority. That is, the article concludes that there is a dynamic between hierarchical and collective forms of leadership in this specific self-managing organization that serves to make its mode of self-management viable. In terms of practice, the results suggests that truly radical decentralization of decision making in the day-to-day is possible and can be highly effective. Furthermore, perhaps counterintuitively, results suggests that there can be a role for quite pronounced hierarchical leadership in making collective leadership flourish – at least when transitioning from a managerial hierarchy. Further research into this area might study organizations that are originally started as self-managing organizations and see if the same role for hierarchical management of collective leadership exists also in this type of case.

Characterizing Organizational Lifecycle through Strategic and Structural Flexibility: Insights from MSMEs in Mexico

Today's lifespan of companies tends to be low in the so-called micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational life cycle (OLC) theory indicates that organizational aging is related, but not determined, by the firm chronological age or its size. Therefore, a firm's aging should be analyzed by other factors such as flexibility. The literature considers flexibility as an essential capability, a source of competitive advantage, and an enabler of long-term growth for MSMEs. However, little attention in emerging economies has been paid to examine the nuances of this concept in relation to the OLC in this type of companies. Additionally, studies tend to analyze flexibility as a general term, ignoring that it is a polymorphic concept. That is why there is a need to research the different categories of flexibility. Drawing on a quantitative approach conducting a factor analysis, a two-step cluster, and decision tree analysis to interrogate data from 257 MSMEs in Mexico, this study provides evidence of different dimensions of strategic and structural flexibility that help to characterize and predict the growth, maturity, and declining stages of MSMEs. Our results show that mature firms present more strategic and structural flexible characteristics than those involved in growth or decline stages. The flexible factors that help classify and predict an MSME in the maturity stage include open communication, decentralized decision making, and formalization. We provide a model with these results to illuminate unaddressed issues regarding the broad term of flexibility and its relationship to OLC.