BUSI 610 Week 5 Literature Review: Annotated Bibliography Example

Self-Managing Organizations and the Limits of Less Hierarchy: An Annotated Bibliography

Review Question

The question driving the review is when self-managing designs, whether in teams or across a whole organization, help results and working life, and when they backfire. The fifteen sources below address the design roots of self-management, evidence from teams, evidence from organizations and the hidden forms of control and support that flat structures require.

Annotated Bibliography

Barker, J. R. (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(3), 408-437. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393374

Barker (1993) studied a small manufacturing company that replaced supervisors with self-managing teams. Over time the teams developed shared values and then increasingly formal norms, which members enforced on one another through peer pressure. Barker called this concertive control and argued that it constrained workers more tightly than the bureaucratic control it replaced, because workers now monitored themselves and each other. The study is an in-depth ethnography of a single firm, which gives it rich detail but limits generalization. It is essential to the review's section on hidden control, because it shows that removing managers does not remove control; it changes who exercises it.

Bunderson, J. S., & Boumgarden, P. (2010). Structure and learning in self-managed teams: Why "bureaucratic" teams can be better learners. Organization Science, 21(3), 609-624. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0483

Bunderson and Boumgarden (2010) studied self-managed production teams in a large manufacturing company and found that teams with more structure, clear specialization, formalized procedures and an internal hierarchy of roles, learned more than less structured teams. Structure appeared to help by reducing conflict and encouraging the sharing of information. The finding challenges the assumption that self-management means minimal structure. The study uses survey and performance data from one company, so its results may depend on the type of work involved. It will support the review's argument that effective self-management relies on clear roles and procedures.

Burton, R. M., Håkonsson, D. D., Nickerson, J., Puranam, P., Workiewicz, M., & Zenger, T. (2017). GitHub: Exploring the space between boss-less and hierarchical forms of organizing. Journal of Organization Design, 6, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41469-017-0020-3

Burton et al. (2017) use the experience of GitHub, a software company that began without traditional managers and later introduced a management layer, to examine the space between boss-less and hierarchical organizing. The authors consider why a firm might move from flat to more hierarchical forms as it grows and what problems of coordination and decision making that change addresses. As an analysis built around one company, it offers insight rather than statistical evidence. It will be used in the review's section on whole organizations to illustrate how self-managing designs may evolve as firms grow.

Cohen, S. G., & Ledford, G. E., Jr. (1994). The effectiveness of self-managing teams: A quasi-experiment. Human Relations, 47(1), 13-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679404700102

Working inside a telephone company, Cohen and Ledford (1994) set teams that ran themselves beside conventionally supervised groups doing comparable jobs. Using a quasi-experimental design, they found that self-managing teams were generally rated as more effective on measures of performance and quality of work life, though the size of the advantage varied by type of work. The comparison groups strengthen the study's conclusions relative to case studies, although teams were not randomly assigned, so differences in team members or managers could explain some results. It will provide key evidence for the review's section on team performance.

Galbraith, J. R. (1974). Organization design: An information processing view. Interfaces, 4(3), 28-36. https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.4.3.28

Galbraith (1974) argued that the central task of organization design is matching the organization's capacity to process information with the uncertainty of its work. Rules and hierarchy suffice for routine tasks, but uncertain tasks require either reducing the need for information through self-contained units or increasing processing capacity through lateral relations. Although conceptual rather than empirical, the article has shaped decades of design research. It will anchor the review's section on design roots, explaining why less hierarchical designs become attractive when work is uncertain.

Kirkman, B. L., & Rosen, B. (1999). Beyond self-management: Antecedents and consequences of team empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 42(1), 58-74. https://doi.org/10.5465/256874

Kirkman and Rosen (1999) studied over one hundred work teams in several organizations and found that team empowerment, members' collective sense of meaning, impact, autonomy and potency, was associated with greater productivity, proactivity and customer service and with higher job satisfaction and commitment. External leader behavior, team responsibilities and team-based human resource practices were among the antecedents of empowerment. The multiorganization sample strengthens the findings, though the data are largely cross-sectional. The source will support the team evidence section and show that empowerment depends on organizational support as well as team structure.

Langfred, C. W. (2004). Too much of a good thing? Negative effects of high trust and individual autonomy in self-managing teams. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 385-399. https://doi.org/10.5465/20159588

Langfred (2004) found that in self-managing teams where members trusted one another highly and each member had high individual autonomy, members monitored one another less, and performance suffered. Trust, usually seen as an asset, became a liability when combined with independent work, because problems went unnoticed. The study's sample of student teams limits its direct application to workplaces, but its logic is relevant to any team with little external oversight. It will be used in the section on limits and contingencies to show that autonomy needs to be paired with mechanisms for monitoring and feedback.

Lee, M. Y., & Edmondson, A. C. (2017). Self-managing organizations: Exploring the limits of less-hierarchical organizing. Research in Organizational Behavior, 37, 35-58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2017.10.002

In the definition Lee and Edmondson (2017) propose, a self-managing organization is one that pushes authority down radically, formally and across the entire enterprise, which sets such organizations apart from firms that merely use empowered teams within a hierarchy. They review prior research, describe the challenges such organizations face and propose an agenda for future study. As a review and conceptual article, it provides definitions rather than new data. It will serve as the review's central definitional source and frame its distinction between team-level and organization-level self-management.

Lee, S. (2022). The myth of the flat start-up: Reconsidering the organizational structure of start-ups. Strategic Management Journal, 43(1), 58-92. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3333

Lee (2022) examined the organizational structures of start-ups in the video game industry and found that hierarchy had mixed effects: flatter firms tended to do better at generating novel ideas, while more hierarchical firms tended to be better at developing ideas into commercially successful products. The study challenges the popular belief that start-ups should avoid hierarchy. Its focus on one creative industry limits generalization, but its large sample and careful measures make it persuasive. It will support the review's argument that the value of hierarchy depends on the stage and type of work.

Magpili, N. C., & Pazos, P. (2018). Self-managing team performance: A systematic review of multilevel input factors. Small Group Research, 49(1), 3-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496417710500

Magpili and Pazos (2018) systematically reviewed research on the factors that influence the performance of self-managing teams, organizing them at the individual, team and organizational levels. They identified factors such as member skills and personality, team composition and processes, leadership and organizational support. As a systematic review, it brings scattered findings together efficiently, though it can be no stronger than the studies it gathers. It will be used to organize the review's section on conditions for success and to identify gaps in the evidence.

Manz, C. C., & Sims, H. P., Jr. (1987). Leading workers to lead themselves: The external leadership of self-managing work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 32(1), 106-129. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392745

Manz and Sims (1987) studied the leaders assigned to oversee self-managing teams in a manufacturing plant and found that the most effective external leaders encouraged team members to observe, evaluate and reward their own performance rather than directing them. They called this leading workers to lead themselves. The study's field setting gives it realism, though it focused on one plant. It will support the review's section on external leadership, showing that self-managing teams still need leaders, but of a different kind.

Martela, F. (2019). What makes self-managing organizations novel? Comparing how Weberian bureaucracy, Mintzberg's adhocracy, and self-organizing solve six fundamental problems of organizing. Journal of Organization Design, 8, Article 23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41469-019-0062-9

Setting bureaucracy, adhocracy and self-organizing side by side, Martela (2019) asks how each handles the fundamental problems every organization must solve, such as dividing tasks, allocating them, providing information and providing rewards. He argues that self-managing organizations are novel mainly in how they distribute authority over these decisions to employees and peer processes. The comparative framework clarifies what is genuinely new, though it is conceptual rather than empirical. It will be used in the section comparing self-management with earlier organizational forms.

Morgeson, F. P. (2005). The external leadership of self-managing teams: Intervening in the context of novel and disruptive events. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(3), 497-508. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.3.497

Morgeson (2005) studied how external leaders support self-managing teams and found that leaders' active involvement was most helpful when teams faced novel or disruptive events, and that unnecessary intervention in routine situations could be counterproductive. The study refines earlier views by showing that the right amount of leader involvement depends on circumstances. Its use of multiple sources of data strengthens it, though the teams studied were in a limited range of settings. It will extend the external leadership section, showing when leaders should step in.

Puranam, P., Alexy, O., & Reitzig, M. (2014). What's "new" about new forms of organizing? Academy of Management Review, 39(2), 162-180. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.0436

Puranam et al. (2014) argue that every organization must solve universal problems of dividing labor, by dividing and allocating tasks, and of integrating effort, by providing rewards and information. New forms of organizing are new, they propose, when they solve these problems in novel ways, not simply when they reduce hierarchy. The framework offers a disciplined way to evaluate claims of novelty, although it does not test them empirically. It will help the review define its terms and avoid treating every flat structure as a new form.

Stewart, G. L. (2006). A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance. Journal of Management, 32(1), 29-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206305277792

Stewart (2006) combined the results of many studies to examine how team design features, including member composition, task design and leadership, relate to team performance. Team autonomy and empowering leadership were among the features associated with better performance, though effects varied with the type of task. As a meta-analysis, it offers stronger evidence than any single study, but it cannot separate self-managing teams from other teams with high autonomy in every case. It will provide the review's broadest quantitative evidence on team design.