A Requisite Organization is a Network Hierarchy

Forrest ChristianTheory 2 Comments

I am going out on a limb here and make a totally unsupported guess: Elliott Jaques’s Requisite Organization Hierarchies can be interpreted as Networks. I think that the reason everyone has been talking about Markets, Hierarchies and Networks as separate classes has to do with how the first two have been implemented and written about in the last 100-200 years. …

Belgian royal conservatory's dome, interior with sun. (c) E. Forrest Christian

Hierarchy versus Emergence in Organizations

Forrest ChristianOrganizations 5 Comments

Hierarchies are emergent phenomena. One of the things that has bothered me with the several “postmodern” discussions about organizational life has been the disregard for hierarchies often expressed by them. Flat oranizations are superior to hierarchical ones, they say, because inforrmation and knowledge flows more freely between equals. I agree that information and knowledge flows better between equals but I …