Configuration School

Presented by: Nelum Shehzade

Bahria University, Islamabad.
Main Ideas
 Configuration & transformation: “there is a time
for coherence and a time for change”
 Strategy is about continuity, not change
 Strategy is about creating stability and about the
ability to occasionally dramatically change
 Configuration – academics
 Transformation – practiced by managers and
 prescribed by consultants
 Configuration School
 There are two main sides of this school:
 One describes states of the organization and its surrounding
context as configuration and the other one is describing the
strategy-making process as transformation.

 Configuration tends to be researched and described by

academics, while transformation tends to be practised by
managers and prescribed by consultants.
 It has been decided to use the more practical approach of
transformation, because the core issue of problem solving
strategies is an innovating change process.
 The solution process is not regarded as a linear process, but as
an interactive system. If one element is changed, this change
can influence the other elements and the change of these
elements can cause changes in the original element.
Configuration School
conti..
 An arrangement of parts or elements; "the
outcome depends on the configuration of
influences at the time" .

 “meta-school” which asserts that the most

appropriate of the preceding schools should
be adopted as the current strategic
configurations.
Configuration School
conti…
 This school offers the possibility of reconciliation, one way to integrate
the messages of the other schools . Among the types of stages within
an organization we find:

 stage of development (hiring people, establishing systems, firming up

strategic positions, etc.)

 stage of stability (fine-tuning the strategies and structures, etc., in place)

 stage of adaptation (marginal changes in structures and strategic

positions)

 stage of struggle (groping for a new sense of direction, whether in limbo,

in flux, or by experimentation)

 stage of revolution (rapid transformation of many characteristics

concurrently)
 Premises of the Configuration

School
Most of the time, an organization can be described in terms of some kind of stable
configuration of its characteristics: for a distinguishable period of time, it adopts a
particular form of structure matched to a particular type of context which causes it
to engage in particular behaviors that give rise to a particular set of strategies.

 These periods of stability are interrupted occasionally by some process of

transformation—a quantum leap to another configuration.

 These successive states of configuration and periods of transformation may order

themselves over time into patterned sequences, for example describing life cycles
of organizations.

 The key to strategic management, therefore, is to sustain stability or at least

adaptable strategic change most of the time, but periodically to recognize the need
for transformation and be able to manage that dis' ruptive process without
destroying the organization

 Accordingly, the process of strategy making can be one of conceptual designing or

formal planning, systematic analyzing or leadership visioning, cooperative learning
or competitive politicking, focusing on individual cognition, collective socialization,
or simple response to the forces of the environment.
CONFIGURATIONS OF
STRUCTURE AND POWER

 The Entrepreneurial Organization

 The Machine Organization
 The Professional Organization
 The Diversified Organization
 The Missionary Organization
 The Political Organization
TRANSFORMING
ORGANIZATIONS

 Incremental Change
 Quantum Change/Revolutionary Change
 Evolved Change
 Driven Change
 Planned Change
CRITIQUE, OF THE CONFIGURATION
SCHOOL
 Few real organizations are simple structures or machine bureaucracies:
almost all organizations lie somewhere in the middle. Students, be they
MBA or executives, mostly come from organizations which have
intermediary levels of size, standardization, organic-ness and so on.

 Managers are involved in managing change, usually of degree: some

growth in size, a little more innovation, maturing of this product line but not
that product line and so on.

 Gives a too general picture, tries to include everything and fails to

discuss anything well.

 In configurations they find stark, but simplistic caricature: simple

structures, machine bureaucracy, innovating adhocracies. These models
provide scant help.
 Organizations come in "many shades of gray and not just
black and white"
CONTRIBUTIONS:

 Overall, the contribution of the configuration

school has been evident in strategic
management.

 It brings order to the messy world of strategy

formation, particularly to its huge, diverse
literature and practice.