Analysis of organisational configuration of the delivery system: Consistencies and inconsistencies

Abstract

Organisation design deals with the manipulation of a series of organisational attributes that determine the division of the workforce and achieving coordination. The organisational configuration is shaped by bringing those and situational factors towards creating a fit between them. A synthesis of theoretical discussions in Part I suggested an insight for understanding and examining the way reconstruction programmes are organised is the contingency, fit for organisational attributes and their consistency with each other, regardless of their form. This chapter analyses the initial organisational configuration, the actual implementation and evolution of the sociotechnical delivery system of the housing reconstruction programme in Bam. It identifies the most influential organisational attributes of the initial configuration and analyses their surrounding issues such as their interconnections and how they contributed to the way the programme worked in practice. Dynamics of those led to the need for further evolutions, which had domino effects. Unit grouping, control mechanisms, delegating accountability, (de)centralisation and the workflow process, were interlinked; and some of them had considerable influences on other parameters. The innovative approach to the formation of the system including the workflow was based on the modification of previous housing development. The fluency of the workflow was highly influenced by other attributes. Building on the contingency view, the Bam case presents a mixture of consistencies and inconsistencies in its organisational attributes that influenced the way the programme performed and its outcomes. Graphical presentations of those main influential organisational attributes and the final composition of the whole are explanatory, offering a visual analytical method of examination for reconstruction programme organisations.