The Use of Organizational Design Features in Purchasing and Supply Management‪.‬

Of the myriad ways organizations pursue competitive advantage in their supply management efforts, the most common are outsourcing, supplier development or strategic alliances and partnerships. Rarely mentioned, however, is the more mundane topic of organizational design. Except for cross-functional teaming, organizational design has received limited attention from supply management researchers. Organizational design is a broad concept referring to the process of assessing and selecting the structure and formal system of communication, division of labor, coordination, control, authority and responsibility required to achieve an organization's goals (Hamel and Pralahad 1994). One way to think about an organization's design is as a complex web reflecting the pattern of interactions and coordination of technology, tasks and human components (Silvestri 1997). Although design is often thought of in terms of organizational structure, an organization's design is much more complex and detailed than the lines and boxes that appear on an organizational chart (Champoux 2000).