The I-Form Organization

Abstract

Every generation of managers experiments with new organizational forms – new business models and the organizational structures and management processes required to support them. Much of the current experimentation with business and organizational models is occurring in knowledge-intensive industries such as biotechnology, computers, telecommunications, and medical and scientific equipment. Based on our ongoing research, the principal business model that we see emerging in these and similar industries can be called market exploration. Market exploration is a firm’s pursuit of opportunities created by intersecting technologies and markets. The market exploration process is complex, involving technology development, product development and commercialization in collaboration with customers and other firms, and the orderly development of markets which have large but unknown potential. Firms that want to be effective at market exploration must organize specifically for innovation – they must be able to build and manage an I-form organization. In this article, we show how many firms are moving towards and improving the I-form organization, and we discuss its purpose, key features, and benefits.