About us

History

In 2009, a small group of American and Danish scholars started discussions about forming a worldwide community focused on the topic of organization design. Ultimately, they envisioned a large, vibrant community of scholars, executives, and organizations all of whom would be committed to improving the effectiveness of organizations in the global economy. The group discussed how firms increasingly face competitive pressures related to rapid and continuous adaptation to a complex, highly interconnected global environment and, in response, how firms were experimenting with a variety of new organizational forms that were considerably different from existing forms. The scholars envisioned the Organizational Design Community to be at the forefront of this learning and adaptive process. The community would seek to accelerate experimentation, research, and learning about organization design (and redesign) by creating a mechanism for multi-party collaboration whose primary purpose was to advance knowledge and practice in this area.

In 2010, a number of meetings among the founding members of Organizational Design Community (ODC) were held. The infrastructure needed by ODC was discussed along with the community's mission and how it should be supported. In January 2011, ODC was formally established when the founding members approved the Articles of Association. At that time the community consisted of 16 founding members who held the collective belief that the organization design process can and should be improved through a focused effort that combines the research of practically oriented scholars with the experiences and inputs of thoughtful executives. Additional members of ODC were added through a process of invitation.

The community became fully operational in early 2012.