Blackwell Reference Online

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The importance of fitting a company's organizational structure to its strategy was initially highlighted by Chandler (1962) . His work subsequently spurred a series of studies of strategy and structure in domestic firms ( Pavan, 1972 ; Channon, 1973 ; Rumelt, 1974 ; Dyas and Thanheiser, 1976 ), and in multinational corporations (MNCs) ( Stopford and Wells, 1972 ; Franko, 1973 ; Daniels, Pitts, and Tretter, 1984 , 1985 ; Egelhoff, 1982 , 1988a ). These and other studies described a reasonably consistent and seemingly important set of fits between MNC strategy and MNC structure. The primary advantages associated with such strategy–structure models of the MNC include: (1) a clear specifying of when one type of structure is superior to another, and (2) the identification of those elements of strategy which are most important to a firm's structure. Taken together, these characteristics made strategy–structure models attractive guidelines for evaluating and designing a firm's structure and considering the implications of changes in firm strategy. Since the 1980s, however, scholarly interest in traditional strategy–structure theory has waned. Instead, there has been a growing interest in non‐structural and more informal approaches to organizing international firms. The dominant models here have been transnational (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989) and heterarchical ( Hedlund, 1986 ) ... log in or subscribe to read full text