How is evolution in the global economy affecting managerial roles and responsibilities?
MT: Not only has the pace of change quickened, but as organizations become more global, their ability to exert leverage on suppliers is growing. Consider one firm we’ve worked with, an international consortium of independent gas companies. Recently, one of their valued global customers told them that dealing separately with their member companies in seventeen countries had become a burden, so they were calling for a single integrated solution. If organizations are to survive long-term, managers must learn how to create organizational architectures that can be, at once, centralized and decentralized, small and large, local and global-in other words, ambidextrous organizations. CO: From another viewpoint, sustainable competitive advantage is diminishing because, increasingly, firms can locate plants anywhere, and call on human, financial, and other resources without regard for locale. EE: How is organizational design adapting to such evolutionary change? MT: First, let’s define what we c
