| Course | GM543 Strategic Organizational Design and Architecture |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 820 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM543 Unit 6
Swinging Back Is Not Always a Mistake: A Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on Reorganization
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM543: Strategic Organizational Design and Architecture
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The classmates' organizations and Harrow Contract Furniture are composite; the studies cited are real.
Three Reorganizations
Before the seminar we were asked to bring one reorganization we had lived through. Three of them stayed with me.
Lucia works at a hospital system that moved all surgical and clinic scheduling into a central office. For about eighteen months the central office cut no-show rates and filled operating room blocks more evenly. Then nurse managers began complaining that schedulers did not understand their units, and scheduling was returned to the units, with a small central team kept for reporting.
Arjun's software firm moved its engineers from functional teams, organized by front end, back end and testing, into product squads. Two years later, after quality slipped and engineers complained of losing touch with their specialty, the firm created chapters by skill that cut across the squads, a partial move back.
Tom described a county that pooled the IT staff from twelve departments into one central office to standardize systems and reduce cost. Four years later, departments had lost patience with ticket queues, and IT staff were assigned back out to the departments, still reporting to a central chief.
My First Position
I came to the seminar believing that each of these swings proved the first design had been a mistake. If centralized scheduling worked, why undo it? I thought each organization had wasted money on a change it should have studied more carefully. My own employer, Harrow Contract Furniture, centralized customer service four years ago, and I assumed that if it ever decentralized again, someone would have been wrong.
The Instructor's Question
Our instructor then put one question to the group: what did each swing fix that the previous design had allowed to decay? We went back through the cases. In the hospital, central scheduling fixed uneven use of operating rooms, but it let unit knowledge decay. Returning scheduling to the units restored that knowledge, and the central reporting team kept some of the gains. The software firm's squads fixed slow product delivery but let technical depth decay. The chapters restored depth. The county's pooling fixed incompatible systems but let responsiveness decay.
Then we read Jack Nickerson and Todd Zenger's paper on being efficiently fickle (Nickerson & Zenger, 2002). They argue that when the functions a firm wants lie between what two structures can deliver, and when structure changes slowly, a firm can reach the middle by moving back and forth between the two over time. Each move corrects what the last one let slide. In their account the swing is not evidence of failure; it is the way a firm gets a balance that no single structure provides.
Each swing fixed what the previous design had let decay, and none of them proved the first design had been wrong for its time.
Paul Boumgarden, Jack Nickerson and Todd Zenger later studied firms that moved between exploration and exploitation over time, and found that such vacillation could outperform trying to do both at once (Boumgarden et al., 2012). That made me rethink my assumption that the best structure is the one that never needs changing.
David Nadler and Michael Tushman make a related point from the manager's side. They describe organization design as a recurring task rather than a single event, because strategy and the environment keep moving while a structure stays fixed once it is built (Nadler & Tushman, 1997). Read that way, a company that redesigns every few years is not confused. It is doing what any design requires when the work it serves keeps changing, and the real question is whether each redesign is chosen for a reason the leaders can state.
Where I Still Disagree
I do not think every swing is efficient. Tom's county seemed to swing because a new county manager arrived, not because responsiveness had decayed. A move made for political reasons does not become wise because it happens to restore a lost balance. The test, I now think, is whether leaders can name what the current design is letting decay before they change it. If they cannot, the swing is probably not deliberate.
Turning It on Harrow
Harrow centralized customer service four years ago because each plant handled its own customers and service was inconsistent. Centralizing fixed consistency. What has decayed since then is coordinators' knowledge of the plants and their ability to change anything there, which shows up as nineteen coordinators chasing dates by email. If Harrow now gives project coordinators to market units, it will not be admitting a mistake. It will be correcting what centralization let slide, and it should expect that one day it may need to pull some of that work back together again.
References
Boumgarden, P., Nickerson, J., & Zenger, T. R. (2012). Sailing into the wind: Exploring the relationships among ambidexterity, vacillation, and organizational performance. Strategic Management Journal, 33(6), 587-610. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.1972
Nadler, D. A., & Tushman, M. L. (1997). Competing by design: The power of organizational architecture. Oxford University Press.
Nickerson, J. A., & Zenger, T. R. (2002). Being efficiently fickle: A dynamic theory of organizational choice. Organization Science, 13(5), 547-566. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.13.5.547.7815
GM543 Unit 6 instructions, in plain terms
The GM543 Unit 6 reflection asks you to record what you learned from a seminar or its written alternative, in the first person. Summarize the cases or arguments classmates raised, briefly and specifically, so a reader knows what was discussed. State your own position as you held it before the session, without improving it in hindsight. Then explain what challenged it: a question, a classmate's example or a reading, and connect the reading to the cases rather than summarizing it separately. Say where your view changed and where it held, with reasons. Close by applying what you learned to an organization you know, ideally one that has already reorganized or is considering it. Expect about two to three pages with APA 7 citations for any assigned readings and research you bring in.
How this GM543 Unit 6 example is built
The reflection summarizes three classmates' reorganizations: Lucia's hospital scheduling office, Arjun's software squads and later chapters, and Tom's county IT pool. The writer's first position follows, that each reversal proved the first design wrong, applied even to Harrow's centralized customer service. The instructor's question about what each swing fixed leads to a pass through the cases, naming what each design let decay. Nickerson and Zenger's efficient fickleness reframes the swings, and the highlighted sentence marks the change in view. Boumgarden, Nickerson and Zenger on vacillation and Nadler and Tushman on design as a recurring task extend the point. A section on disagreement argues that the county's swing came from a new manager, not decay, and proposes a test for deliberate swings. The closing applies the idea to Harrow's coordinators.
GM543 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
GM543 rubric points for this reflection reward a starting view stated honestly and a clear record of what moved it. Instructors look for classmates' cases summarized specifically enough that the reader can follow the argument. A first position stated plainly, even if later revised, earns more than a writer who claims to have agreed all along. Credit comes from connecting the reading to the cases discussed rather than summarizing it separately. Noting where the writer still disagrees, with a reason, shows independent judgment. The closing application to the writer's own organization should use the idea, not just mention it. Nickerson and Zenger in Organization Science, Boumgarden, Nickerson and Zenger in Strategic Management Journal and Nadler and Tushman's Competing by Design supply the references in APA 7.
GM543 Unit 6 help: mistakes that cost points
GM543 Unit 6 reflections often summarize the session but never state the view the writer brought in, so no change can be seen. Others summarize the reading in a separate paragraph without tying it to anything discussed. A common gap is uncritical agreement: a reflection that accepts every idea shows less thought than one that tests an idea and finds a limit. Some writers end with a general lesson instead of applying it to an organization they know. Name the cases briefly, state your starting view, show the question or reading that challenged it, connect the reading to each case, say where you still disagree and turn the idea on a workplace you can describe.
Get a GM543 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Which reorganizations did classmates bring to the session, and did any of them swing back? List those, the instructor's sharpest question and your view going in, whether you took part live or in writing. The Unit 6 prompt and rubric complete what is needed, and the first reflection, free and back in 24-48h, stays anchored in structure rather than in the stories alone. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GM543 Unit 6 questions, answered
Does the reflection have to include a reorganization of my own?
Not always, though it helps if the prompt allows it. Many sections ask the writer to connect the discussion to their own workplace by the end, and a reorganization lived through gives that connection evidence. Where the organization has not reorganized, a proposed change, or a structure that has drifted without any formal change, can serve the same purpose.
What if nobody in the seminar disagreed?
Then the reflection can supply the tension from the reading. Agreement in a live session often covers different reasons, and separating them is analysis. The sample's shift came from the instructor's question rather than from a classmate, which is common. A reflection can also report where the writer's view held firm, provided the challenge it survived is stated fairly and the reasons are specific.
Is Nickerson and Zenger a standard reading for this unit?
It appears in some design courses but not all, and the unit may assign a textbook chapter instead. The sample uses it because it speaks directly to reorganizations that reverse, which is what the session discussed. A custom version draws on whatever the section assigns, applied to the cases classmates actually described rather than summarized beside them.
Where can I find a free GM543 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM543 Unit 6 seminar reflection on reorganizations that reversed, using Nickerson and Zenger's efficient fickleness and three classmates' cases, with APA 7 references.
What does efficient fickleness mean?
Nickerson and Zenger's idea that a firm wanting results between what two structures deliver can reach them by moving between the structures over time. Each move corrects what the previous design let slide, so a reversal is not by itself evidence of a mistake.