Organization and Management Theory OMT

Hi all,

As part of the OMT Cafe series at the AOM meetings in Atlanta, Daniel Keum and I are organizing an informal conversation for folks interested in hierarchy and the organizational forms that diverge from it. Held in a nice coffee shop near the conference, the event is intended as an opportunity to meet fellow researchers and talk about ongoing research, plans for the future, data needs, burning questions, and whatever else comes up.

Details below. Hope to see you there.

Best,

Trevor Young-Hyman

Saturday 7/5 from 10AM to 11:30AM
Cafe Lucia, 57 Forsyth Street, Atlanta

Organizers: Trevor Young-Hyman (University of Pittsburgh), Daniel Keum (Columbia University)

Hierarchy, defined as a formal decision-making structure based on unequal power relations, has long been the predominant form among market-based organizations. However, there is substantial recent interest in organizational forms that diverge from hierarchy. Focusing in innovation intensive sectors, some argue that attention to alternatives is motivated by the demands of increasingly dynamic markets and the potential of technologies that lower coordination costs. Others justify closer examination of alternatives by emphasizing their consequences for societal welfare. With increasing concerns about the effect of hierarchical investor-owned firms for societal inequality, organizational forms like open source communities and worker cooperatives offer an alternative means of coordinating production. Yet, these points of departure generate a wide range of questions. How do we categorize these various alternatives to hierarchy? In what ways do these forms retain elements of hierarchy? How do hierarchy and its absence co-exist within organizations? How does hierarchy evolve over time within organizations? How does the effect of hierarchy vary across different types of workers? How do institutional forces shape the prevalence of hierarchy within industries or geographic areas? These questions span micro-social and macro-social levels of analysis, and a range of sub-disciplines within the management field. We welcome researchers currently conducting research on hierarchy and those interested in the topic to join us for a free-ranging conversation.