Toward a Conceptualization of Organizational Modularity

Abstract

Organizations are complex systems made up of many different elements interacting with each other. One particular form of organizational design, emerging from the need to deal with organizational complexity and environmental uncertainty, is modularity. There are several studies in the literature dealing with organizational modularity. However, neither a common definition nor a complete measurement model is proposed for this concept. What are the common properties of an organization characterized as highly modular? How are these properties related to organizational design parameters? None of these questions have been adequately addressed in the literature. Thus, this chapter aims to identify the common properties of an organization which can be considered to be highly modular and to propose a theoretical conceptualization of organizational modularity based on a framework originally linking Baldwin and Clark's visible design rules with Mintzberg's organizational design parameters and provides a suggestion for operationalizing the concept of organizational modularity.