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A NOTE ON THE HIERARCHY–TEAM DEBATE
Author(s) -
ROMME A. GEORGES L.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0266(199605)17:5<411::aid-smj809>3.0.co;2-o
Subject(s) - hierarchy , knowledge management , obstacle , ideal (ethics) , context (archaeology) , organizational learning , learning organization , key (lock) , computer science , sociology , business , management science , epistemology , political science , engineering , law , paleontology , philosophy , computer security , biology
This note explores the debate between proponents of organizational learning who have criticized hierarchy as an obstacle to learning and those who have defended hierarchy as indispensable for large organizations. By considering hierarchy and team as ideal‐typical information systems, it is argued that both teams and hierarchies are essential for organizational learning in large organizations. Teams appear to be the key learning units which are indispensable for producing and understanding novel information, and hierarchies are indispensable for processing and storing important learning results. The trade‐off between teams and hierarchy can be solved by emphasizing the idea of circularity, involving the ability to switch between teams and hierarchies as complementary information systems in the context of organizational learning.