Chapter 4 Configurational Analysis and Organization Design: Towards a Theory of Structural Heterogeneity

This chapter reconstructs the roots of configurational analysis in organization theory and organizational economics, focusing on the elements of configurational thinking that are particularly relevant to organizational design; and outlining some future prospects for a configurational theory of organization design. We detect the presence of configurational ideas in many organization theories and organizational economics approaches. We argue that this, seldom acknowledged, continuity extends and enriches the implications of configurational analysis for organization design. In addition, we define and identify ‘structural heterogeneity’ as an organizational property that can be distinctively studied by configurational analysis, distinguishing between internal heterogeneity – diversity of organizational attributes within one configuration – and external heterogeneity – diversity of organizational configurations under the same environmental conditions. Some of the insights that can be gained through a configurational analysis of structural heterogeneity are illustrated through a fs/QCA study of a multi-industry sample of firms.