{"title":"Holacracy: A New Way of Organizing?","authors":"Maria Farkhondeh, Barbara Müller","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2021-4-302","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Organizations have to act in environments that are constantly becoming more insecure, dynamic, and competitive. Practitioner and scholar literature continue to call for and explore new work arrangements. The concept of Holacracy - often referred to as a ‘new form of organizing’ - represents a reaction to the increasing complexity and environmental dynamics that organizations have to deal with. It promises a new way to run organizations and aims to replace traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic structures in organizations with decentralized authority and self-organization. This article looks beyond the recent hype about Holacracy and analyses what is actually novel about the concept. In specific, we aim at identifying the core principles of the concept and discuss them against the background of bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic approaches to review whether and how Holacracy deviates from these two approaches. We do so by applying a qualitative analysis method where the book ‘Holacracy’ was subjected to content analysis. The results of this paper demonstrate that - given the high degree of formal standardization - the concept itself is still bureaucratic, although with certain modifications, especially regarding participative decision-making processes. Further, our results demonstrate that Holacracy has a very unique and unprecedented interpretation of power and authority, which requires more intensive empirical research and analysis.","PeriodicalId":47269,"journal":{"name":"Management Revue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Management Revue","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2021-4-302","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Organizations have to act in environments that are constantly becoming more insecure, dynamic, and competitive. Practitioner and scholar literature continue to call for and explore new work arrangements. The concept of Holacracy - often referred to as a ‘new form of organizing’ - represents a reaction to the increasing complexity and environmental dynamics that organizations have to deal with. It promises a new way to run organizations and aims to replace traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic structures in organizations with decentralized authority and self-organization. This article looks beyond the recent hype about Holacracy and analyses what is actually novel about the concept. In specific, we aim at identifying the core principles of the concept and discuss them against the background of bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic approaches to review whether and how Holacracy deviates from these two approaches. We do so by applying a qualitative analysis method where the book ‘Holacracy’ was subjected to content analysis. The results of this paper demonstrate that - given the high degree of formal standardization - the concept itself is still bureaucratic, although with certain modifications, especially regarding participative decision-making processes. Further, our results demonstrate that Holacracy has a very unique and unprecedented interpretation of power and authority, which requires more intensive empirical research and analysis.
期刊介绍:
Management Revue - Socio-Economic Studies is an interdisciplinary European journal that undergoes peer review. It publishes qualitative and quantitative work, along with purely theoretical papers, contributing to the study of management, organization, and industrial relations. The journal welcomes contributions from various disciplines, including business and public administration, organizational behavior, economics, sociology, and psychology. Regular features include reviews of books relevant to management and organization studies.
Special issues provide a unique perspective on specific research fields. Organized by selected guest editors, each special issue includes at least two overview articles from leaders in the field, along with at least three new empirical papers and up to ten book reviews related to the topic.
The journal aims to offer in-depth insights into selected research topics, presenting potentially controversial perspectives, new theoretical insights, valuable empirical analysis, and brief reviews of key publications. Its objective is to establish Management Revue - Socio-Economic Studies as a top-quality symposium journal for the international academic community.