Many tasks one performed by markets are being carried out by large and complex business Organizations. Consequently, the question of how to design effective organizations is an important research issue. This article explores existing research on the design of organizational structures for what it teaches about developing priorities for research on agribusiness management. It concludes that the theory of structural design implies that daerent designs may be required for agribusiness organizations which operate under different conditions &an general businese organizations. Specific mearch topics designed to examine whether and why this may be true are developed.
The largest part of the value added in agriculture and, thus, the greatest potential for improved food system performance, rests with agribusiness. Many of the coordination and allocation tasks upon which this performance depends are carried out within large and complex business organizations. Consequently, how to design effective large organizations is an important question for agribusiness management.
While business managers have long practiced the art of designing and redesigning large and complex organizations, a systematic body of knowledge drawing on their successes and failures is only just developing. This is to be expected because systematic knowledge of organizational design presupposes basic knowledge of what elements an organization is composed of and what relationships exist among those elements. This basic knowledge is still being developed by organizational theorists. However, some management scholars have begun asking what this basic research implies about how to design effective business organizations. This article reviews their research and examines what it teaches us about developing research priorities on agribusiness management.