With a world-class editorial board and exceptional authors, Journal of Organization Design (JOD) is quickly emerging as a leading outlet for research on organizations-surpassing even longstanding venues like Administrative Science Quarterly. Submit your work and be part of this momentum.
This June 2025 issue reads like a prism and brings together a range of perspectives that converge on a common question: How do organizations take shape?
https://lnkd.in/dGXEjP-Z
The issue opens with a study by Jiayi Bao, Andy Wu, and Miaomiao Zhang on performance-based pay in China. They find that while such pay can boost results, unequal distribution - especially heterogeneous shares - can trigger fairness concerns and asymmetric reactions, ultimately harming performance. It's not just what is rewarded, but how rewards are distributed. Their conclusions draw on a controlled online experiment and a study of eSports professionals.
Raviv Brueller, Nir Brueller, Daphna Brueller, and Abraham Carmeli examine early buyer–supplier partnerships. Their model shows that cooperation develops through shared structures, evolving expectations, and trust. Based on interviews with 88 agents, they trace how early relationships evolve into formal cooperation. It's not the contract alone, but the path to mutual understanding that shapes collaboration.
Huiyang Dai, Lun Li, and Jizhen Li analyze innovation on a digital experimentation platform. Different types of network centrality affect how employees absorb knowledge. Degree centrality raises frequency but may reduce effectiveness due to limited integration. Betweenness centrality fosters diverse exchange, improving both frequency and impact. Closeness centrality boosts effectiveness via direct access to knowledge but limits exposure to indirect sources.
Michael Lustenberger, Florian Spychiger, Lukas Küng, and Jens Martignoni explore Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) from a systems theory view. They challenge traditional property ideas, framing ownership as distributed relational accountability. Focusing on DAOs with physical assets, they highlight issues like collective acquisition, indivisible ownership, and decentralized governance. Three case studies show how DAOs bridge digital and physical realms, questioning whether algorithms can hold assets and communities sustain shared ownership.
Phanish Puranam questions assumptions about self-governance. True self-organization-order without external influence-is rare. Instead, influence patterns, centralized or not, shape order. He distinguishes between direct self-organization (Level 0) and emergent global influence (Level 1), arguing that Level 1 offers deeper insight into decentralized organizing. Flat structures don't ensure adaptability; resilience often stems from thoughtful control.
Finally, Ekin Ilseven and Phanish Puranam introduce Assembly Theory to detect non-randomness in organizational structures. Behind complexity lies deliberate design. Using formal tools, they infer development paths and estimate how likely a structure emerged by chance-showing that intention leaves a trace, even when hidden.
💡 Happy reading and rethinking!
Wu, Brian, Marlo Raveendran, and Oliver Baumann
Co-Editors in Chief
------------------------------
------
Xun (Brian) Wu
Robert G. Rodkey Collegiate Professor of Business Administration
Professor of Strategy
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Chair-Elect, Strategic Management Division, Academy of Management
------------------------------