Although going against the grain, the history of decentralization shows that early adopters reaped phenomenal benefits in terms of company morale and economic performance. What is commonly understood by decentralization originates in the conventional command-and-control paradigm, defined as Decentralization 1.0. To cope with the world's exploding complexity, some vanguard companies have evolved to a higher level of organization by adopting a new kind of decentralization originating in the enabling-and-autonomy paradigm - hence the term Decentralization 2.0. This refers to organizations consisting of autonomous groups facilitated by an enabling support organization. To keep these high-trust, spirit-driven organizations together, a new kind of deep leadership is practiced by them. More than half the book consists of a number of extensive case studies, covering the historical origins and developments of both types of decentralization. Together with the relevant theory, these case studies ensures that Building High-Performance, High-Trust Organizations is useful for both management scholars and practitioners.
Originally a physicist with a life-long interest in the complexity sciences, Gerrit Broekstra is Professor Emeritus of Organization Behavior at the Nyenrode Business University, the Netherlands. He was previously a professor and dean at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA.
