ABSTRACT

The first three chapters provided the background for analyzing the ongoing changes that will force organizations to be designed in a completely different way. They explored how individuals and societies are moving toward a demand for more liberty, which is at odds with the fact that formal organizations are designed to constrain behaviors and limit change. They examined the nature of the constraints imposed by contemporary organizations, and analyzed how they cannot be treated as adverse effects which can be countered because they are linked to the very identity of organizational design. The reader may have been doubtful. The trends described have been unfolding for a while; they date back to the 1970s, even though they have come to widespread attention only recently. Hence it is legitimate to ask why they should have an impact today, and why they have not done so in the past.