The Role of Organisational Architecture in Strategy Implementation

Strategy literature shows strong scholarly consensus on the importance of strategy implementation, its inherently challenging nature and the related problem of poor strategy implementation in most organisations. Beyond the strong scholarly consensus on the strategic value of strategy implementation, the literature highlights antecedents to effective strategy implementation, which are fronted by organisational architecture. This paper focuses on examining the role of organisational architecture in strategy implementation through reviewing both conceptual and empirical literature. To that end, the researcher relied on the literature review in general and the rapid review methodology in particular to collect and synthesise published literature. The results of the review suggest that organisational architecture plays an important role in ensuring effective strategy execution through the synergistic complementarity of its components (organisational structure, organisational culture, strategic leadership, systems, policies and procedures, resources and capabilities and technology), which act as transmission mechanisms to that end. However, results also show that these components of organisational architecture have their downsides, which have to be mitigated to maximise strategy implementation outcomes. Overall, managers need to continuously improve on the alignment of all the components of the organisational architecture in order to maximise the positive outcomes of strategy implementation efforts.