Emerging Organizational Structures: Implications for Leaderless Organizations

Abstract

Contemporary management and organization theory evidence to the fact that more permeable, flexible, creative, quick responsive and boundaryless structures of organizations are emerging at the diminishing trend of the visibility of traditional, bureaucratic, rational and mechanistic structures. Perceiving the transition of the influential role of leaders in these new forms, we explore the possibility of conceptualizing ‘leaderless organizations’ in light of newly emerging non-traditional structures. Reviewing comprehensively the existing literature, and concentrating more on the emerging new forms of organizations this study unveils the enforced stipulations for a leaderless organization under four aspects, employees, structure, job/work and culture. It finds that the role of leaders in newly emerging structures is replaced by reliant connoisseurs who emerge timely and contextually to escort the heedful situations.