Néstor Miranda Carús

In the last decade, the importance of knowledge workers and integration networks has increased significantly. We are living a new era of globalization through communication and people interaction, and that is making traditional functional and even matrix organization designs obsolete.

Traditional functional organizations were designed to optimize the allocation of resources and the operational effectiveness of industrial corporations. Professional employees were grouped by functional area, putting all the specialized knowledge to work together and with very little contact with colleges in different departments. Communications between departments was restricted to the top executives in each area, and as companies started expanding into new businesses this organization first became divisional and later with international expansion it became multinational, transnational an finally a territorial/product matrix.

In this complex organizational environment, every knowledge worker has created his own internal and external cross functional interaction network and knowledge shared by employees or by groups of professional with different backgrounds is becoming the new form of specialization that makes every individual inside an organization a valuable asset.

Individuals and groups have the product and market knowledge and are the only ones that can bring innovation and open new markets for the company they are working for.

Companies are now starting to understand the value of these specialized multi-functional networks and realizing its strategic potential. Many enterprises are now adopting a global organizational design and using the best specialized resources no matter where they are located and encouraging them to expand their functions and start bringing in the innovative ideas that will help firms launch new business initiatives.