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Organizational Anatomy

Organizational Anatomy is an approach used in the fields of management and organizational studies. It utilises insights from biology, medicine, economics and sociology, and to explain internal and external organizational processes and functions, using logic from natural sciences to recognize and diagnose organizational diseases to improve performance.

Contents

• 1 Introduction to organizational anatomy

• 2 Organizational archetypes

• 3 Organizational ages

• 4 Central nervous system

• 5 Peripheral nervous system

• 6 Organizational metabolism

• 7 Organizational pathologies and diseases

• 8 See also

• 9 Further reading

Introduction to Organizational Anatomy

Introduced in 2016 by Oleg Konovalov in his book “Organisational Anatomy: a Manager’s Guide to a Healthy Organisation”, organizational anatomy classifies organizations into five archetypes, explaining the differences between them in terms of functions, and nature of internal and external processes. Using these archetypes allows recognition of problems and difficulties by considering organizational pathologies and diseases thus, enabling managers to diagnose or predict problems and to take actions to overcome them. Looking at the differences between different forms and types of organizations, their ageing process, resources access and utilization, processes coordination and development of internal strength, appropriate structures and functional effectiveness, organizational anatomy classifies and describes typical and atypical organizational diseases. The analysis uses the following steps to classify and diagnose typical and atypical organizational diseases:

• Looking at the differences between different forms and types of organizations;

• Considering their maturity stage;

• Reviewing resource access and utilization;

• Examining processes coordination and development of internal strength, appropriate structures and functional effectiveness.

Organizational Anatomy consists of a number of specific parts, including:

• Organizational archetypes

• Organizational ages

• Central nervous system

• Peripheral nervous system

• Organizational metabolism

• Organizational pathologies and diseases

Organizational archetypes

This part holds that organizations differ in terms of their nature of core assets, i.e. archetypes, and such parameters as size and operational principles and so, allowing three-dimensional view and analyses of an organization.

• Organizational Anatomy classifies organizations into five archetypes depending of their core assets and functioning goals explaining the core nature of their activities and existence:

 o Producers, 
 o Knowledge-dependent, 
 o Location-dependent, 
 o Donor-dependent,
 o State-affiliated organizations. 

• Size of organization, whether micro-enterprise, small, medium or large, is a key factor of organizational functioning and growth. • Operational principle defines a market position of organization as depending of its nature viewed as generalist, specialist or scavenger (e.g. Dobrev et al 2002, Hannan et al 2007). The organizational archetypes define idiosyncratic attributes of organizations relevant to their core activity and strategic goal.

Organizational ages

Organizations progress through several stages of life that impact on their performance:

• Newly created

• Young,

• Adolescent or permanently supported,

• Mature,

• Old.

Organizational Anatomy suggests that the main difference between organizations of different ages lies in two core areas:

• ability to access to necessary resources and their efficient utilization,

• effectiveness of relationship ties and adaptation.

Central nervous system

Organizational Anatomy views cognition, control, internal communication, organizational learning and culture as critical internal processes which form a central nervous system which must be well-balanced and developed. Acting simultaneously, these processes are responsible for reporting on the shortage of resources, pace of development, changes in internal strength and capacity, risks and organization’s performance. The organization’s central nervous system uses the information received from internal sensors (control systems) and external receptors (organizational relationships) to secure the desired efficiency, full exploitation of potential and to enhance performance. Organizational cognition is responsible for the direct interaction between knowledge developed within the organization and sensory processes. It coordinates organizational senses and judged conditions and problems using experience, rational approach and professional expertise (e.g. Nobre et al 2009). Organizational cognition defines how successfully an organization adapts to its environment and market conditions using its existing capacities and at the same time, having a dynamic and changing nature which can be easily seen if viewed at the different stages of organizational development and with the change of market position. Control is the process of establishing and maintaining authority over the organization which requires the use of different assessments and analyzing systems helping managers to make administrative decisions, sensing and signaling problems and show how effectively resources are gained and processed. Control is a necessity due to a behavioral nature of inconsistencies and underperformance of people working in organization. Internal communication is focused on the execution of tasks and processes, coordination of activities, and ensuring the employees support management decisions and actions taken. Internal communication secures the communication and timely interaction between organizational members and the effective transmission of all internal signals within the organization (e.g. Kalla 2005). Similarly to the control function, the effectiveness of internal communication is bounded by the behavior of people and promptness and effectiveness transmission of signals and messages. Organizational learning reflects the ability to accept, adapt, integrate and make sense of the environmental and organizational changes in a systematic basis (e.g. Argyris & Schön 1996). The ability to learn defines the organizational capability to settle organically and for own gain into the environment and coevolve with it without any harm. This is an active and creative process which has two main concerns - the cost of knowledge acquiring and the real value of it, and knowledge transfer within organizational boundaries. Organizational culture is a catalyzer of performance and regulator of organizational life. It explains how people think and behave within an organization and reconcile their own different cultures (national, craft, etc. It has a direct impact on strategy planning and implementation. Culture particularly is important in terms of effective resources utilization and development of organizational capabilities such as creativity, support, learning and motivation.

Peripheral nervous system

The majority of organizational resources are located outside the organization where the strength of relationship defines the distance to external resources (e.g. Grewal & Slotegraaf 2007, Konovalov & Norton, 2014). Organizational Anatomy views three types of external organizational ties which form the peripheral nervous system:

• Strong or resource-securing relations. Strong relations secure the flow of resources which add value to the organizational processes and assist survival through collaboration with key suppliers and customers, higher competitiveness, better prospects for the development after crisis, and promote an organization occupying a market niche.

• Intermediate or value-adding relations. The majority of sales and profit-generating transactions of a smaller scale are obtained through intermediate or value-adding relations in mass manner.

• Weak or service relations. Random and irregular sales, external services and suppliers that have no critical and direct impact on the organizational production process are considered as weak or service relations.

Organizational metabolism

Organizational metabolism is responsible for the continued growth of an organization, effective the functioning of all departments, responsiveness, the simultaneous flow of all processes, utilization of resources – in other words, sustainable organizational functioning. Organizations of different archetype, size and age will have different speeds of metabolism as they utilize their natural resources differently within different patterns of organizational processes. This explains the need for an idiosyncratic goal-oriented structure and organizational design for each organization to optimize synergies between all organizational functions.

Organizational pathologies and diseases

Organizational Anatomy defines organizational pathologies and diseases of different types that can undermine performance and effectiveness and thus, survival. Organizational pathologies and diseases can be:

• Typological. Typological disease occur when organizations use a pattern of resources utilization inappropriate to the relevant archetype, size or operational principle, whilst focusing on non-specific and non-core organizational properties, and by doing so, lose core advantages.

• Neurological. Neurological diseases limit the manageability and efficiency of organizational processes which can be caused by inconsistency in resources flow, poor coordination of internal processes and inefficiency of external ties.

• Functional. Functional pathologies restrict organizational performance due to the malfunctioning and misbalance of organizational functions and processes.

• Age-related. Each stage of organizational life span is characterized by specific diseases which are limiting productivity and survival.

• General. General diseases such as resource blindness, weather sensitivity, dystrophy and goal perplexity, can be seen in organizations of all types and forms

Organizational Anatomy focuses on finding effective treatments for different typical and atypical organizational problems and pathologies, avoidance of mistakes in corporate problem solving, and helping in development of strong, efficient organizations.

See also

• Organizational behavior

• Organizational ecology

• Organizational studies

• Management

Further reading

• Argyris, C. and D.A. Schon (1996) “Organisational learning II: Theory, method and practice.” Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.

• Dobrev, S.D., T-Y. Kim and G.R. Carroll (2002) “The Evolution of Organisational Niches: U.S. Automobile Manufactures, 1885-1981.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 233-264.

• Grewal, R. and R.J. Slotegraaf (2007) “Embeddedness of Organizational Capabilities,” Decision Sciences, 38: 3.

• Hannan, M.T., L. Polos, and G R. Carroll (2007) “Logics of Organization Theory: Audiences, Code, and Ecologies.” Princeton: Princeton University Press.

• Kalla, H. K. (2005) “Integrated Internal Communications: a Multidisciplinary Perspective,” Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 10, 4, 302-314.

• Konovalov, O. and A.L. Norton (2014) “Hidden Russia: Informal Relations and Trust.” Birmingham: Wren Publications.

• Konovalov, O., (2016), "Organisational Anatomy: a Manager’s Guide to a Healthy Organisation." Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK.

• Kuhn, T. (2008) “A Communicative Theory of the Firm: Developing an Alternative Perspective on Intra-organizational Power and Stakeholder Relationships,” Organization Studies, 29, 08/09, 1227–1254.

• Nobre, F.S., A. M. Tobias and D.S. Walker (2009) “Organizational and Technological Implications of Cognitive Machines: Designing Future Information Management Systems.” New York: IGI Global.