Henri Fayol, the father of the school of Systematic Management, realised that organisations were becoming more complex and required their managers to work more professionally. His motivation was to create a theoretical foundation for an educational program for managers who lacked formal training in those days. Basing his work on his experience as a successful...

The American sociologist, Charles Perrow, developed a classification scheme based on the knowledge required to operate technology. Technology is an important factor in contingency theory. It assumed that the type of technology determines an organisation's most effective structure and success in the market. Perrow used two dimensions to create his typology....

Michael Porter published the Value Chain Analysis in 1985 as a response to criticism that his Five Forces framework lacked an implementation methodology that bridged the gap between internal capabilities and opportunities in the competitive landscape. This framework focused on industry attractiveness as a determinant of the profit potential of all companies...

The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg, synthesised organisational design literature into five ideal organisational forms or configurations that do not exist in the real world, but provide consultants and managers a framework to understand and design organisational structures. Mintzberg defined organisational structure as "the sum...