Minimal Network

Conceptual Overview

The need for effectiveness in contexts of high performance ambiguity and high goal incongruence is a central concern for knowledge-intensive organizations.

Because of their strong cultures and unobtrusive default controls, trust-based forms fail to deliver the adequate levels of effectiveness. Minimal networks integrate elements of formal power and elements of trust in order to assure effectiveness, by means of minimal trust derived from minimal commitment and minimal consensus, held together by a minimal structure. The minimal network combines elements from hierarchies and what Ouchi called clans in a way that can increase the effectiveness of trust-based organizations.

Considering Ouchi's two criteria to map theoretically possible organization forms (performance ambiguity and level of goal incongruence), one blank slot corresponds to a major challenge for organizations in hypercompetitive fields: the integration of actions for which it is difficult to assess performance, such as knowledge-intensive work, while avoiding the dangers of strong cultures; this means that these organizations have to accept high goal incongruence. It is this aspect that distinguishes the minimal network from clan organizations. In clans and networks, the high performance ambiguity tends to be compensated by low goal incongruence. However, the low goal incongruence achieved by strong cultures greatly reduces the flexibility of a network, limiting the added effectiveness that is at the basis of the adoption of this configuration.

The minimal network shares the normative conditions of the network configuration, although with a major difference. Whereas in the network form these conditions are set at high levels, in the minimal network they are set at a “minimal” level. Being minimal means that reciprocity is kept at the necessary level for cooperative action to be possible, but at the same time it is kept low enough to avoid phenomena detrimental to diversity, such as increases in similaritybased trust and group pathologies such as risky shift. The point is to ground relationships on swift trust, a depersonalized form of trust, substantiated on positive stereotypes of the people with whom one interacts and on a positive perception of teamwork. As such, the minimal network achieves a paradoxical approach to trust, with trust and distrust coexisting in the sense that members trust each other not as individuals, but instead as members of a “trustworthy” category of people. Formal authority is also kept to a minimal level. The point is to create the necessary structure for [Page 908]diversity to bear fruit and coalesce around the accomplishment of organizational goals while making sure that this structure does not thwart that same diversity and its potential creativity.

The goal, then, is to pick the elements of a formal structure that enable creativity and diversity. Research has shown that, contrary to popular belief, some structure is necessary for diversity to turn into adaptive behavior. However, if this structure goes beyond a necessary threshold, it will quickly undermine creativity and diversity. Thus, structure has to be kept at a minimal level to allow a network to deliver its promised effectiveness.

...