Designing Global Businesses for Innovation and Growth

This report provides context for different organization design structures, describes pitfalls, pinpoints the differences in challenges that younger and more established organizations face, and enumerates seven lessons that can be learned from this study of the relationship between organization design and innovation.

Research for this report includes a survey of 95 large companies, discussions with The Conference Board member companies, an assessment of 12 human capital and 16 organization-wide practices, extensive research in current organizational design literature, and six short company case studies conducted for this report. The case studies intricately explore the differences in deployment of specific organization design structures and the company’s experiences in how those structures interact with its innovation strategy.