Chapter 07 | Conclusions and Recommendations
7.3 Recommendations
7.3.1 The Current Status of Architectural Practice in Ireland
It is potentially detrimental to the architectural market that enquiries, from prospective international clients, to the RIAI cannot currently yield a comprehensive list of all practicing registered architects in Ireland. It is recommended that the Government quickly determine the details of how the new Buildings Control Act 2007 is to be operated. The registration of the title of ‘architect’ will then be operated by the RIAI, ensuring that the international stature of Irish architectural practices will then be benchmarked against an agreed standard and that Irish architecture is transparently registered.
7.3.2 The Relationship between Structure and Strategy Implementation Identifying the Influences on Organisational Structure
Irish architectural practices with international offices should ensure that the structure of their organisations ensures flexibility in order to innovate rapidly and adapt to change when the need arises. Their shareholding arrangements should not become impediments to flexibility and they also need to consider whether or not restructuring is required when changes in strategy take place so that they remain as innovating organisations.
Innovation based strategies should be adopted to deliver both value and cost benefits to the client and creating new demand by making the competition irrelevant.
The evidence shows that even where people have experience and a strategic focus they can still fail as they do not consider strategic implementation or do not plan correctly. Therefore training for managers in strategic planning is recommended as this could assist Irish architectural practices better undertake strategic planning and its implementation accordingly.
7.3.3 The Concept of Organisational Creativity for Competitive Advantage, Identifying Variables that Inhibit and Enhance this Desired State.
In relation to creativity within architectural practices, there is a focus on the architectural product which is traditionally delivered by architects and designers.
Designers and architects are responsible, along with others in the company, for making creative strategic decisions about the organisation. Opportunities to leverage organisational creativity for competitive advantage need to be considered by Irish architectural practices beyond the creative process of production. If a company has strategies to enhance its organisational creativity this can result in new services, more creative processes and new market entry. Strategy involves everyone: Irish architectural practices should blend expertise across the company and have strategies in relation to creativity for the company. This can increase its organisational creativity for competitive advantage accordingly.
These organisations need to nurture an encouragement of creativity and autonomy within firms: seeing the opportunity in the emergence of challenging work, as opposed to workload pressure, as a stimulant to creativity for competitive advantage in difficult times.
Top managers need to consider strategic human resource management and implement a structure that best supports the strategies of the company, which at the same time offers the fewest limitations in order to support creativity for competitive advantage.
7.3.4 The Relationship between Structure and Creativity within the Organisation.
Commercially driven architectural practices should consider these recommendations in relation to their structure in order to support creativity within their organisations for competitive advantage.
Architectural practices driven by innovation and creativity should consider these recommendations in order to prolong the company’s lifespan by taking a more strategic approach to the business and its structure while also supporting creativity.
7.3.5 The Elements of Organisational Structure, Appropriate to Irish Architectural Practices with International Offices, which Affect Organisational Creativity.
Various dimensions of organisational structure need to be considered win order to support the work environment for creativity. These are complexity, formality and centralisation.
The complexity of the organisation needs to be considered by Irish architectural practices in relation to their ability to innovate and adapt quickly to market change for competitive advantage as the flatter the organisation to more creativity is enhanced.
Keeping formalisation of structure low and increasing the contribution which can be made by informal structures can enhance a company’s competitive position by increasing creativity accordingly. Irish architectural practices should consider the mobilisation of both formal structures and informal ones to better maintain the collegiate relationships across the organisation. This is important to the development of new ideas, products and services.
Irish architectural practices with overseas offices should become more strategic about their informal structures to address issues in relation to knowledge, competence and innovation, leveraging those relationships to drive creativity within the organisation for competitive advantage.
For practices seeking competitive advantage through creativity, their reputation for innovation and design quality is important in order to differentiate them accordingly.
In such practices, the design/architectural teams should be de-centralised in order to drive creativity within the practice.
De-centralisation needs to be supported by clear collaborative arrangements to share knowledge so that individual business units share skills across the organisation.
7.3.6 Further Study
Research into the optimal size of team and its relationship to turnover to develop guidelines in this area could enhance knowledge in this area. Undertaking such a study could prevent team sizes in the future becoming too large and thereby possibly loosing direction and suffering from a lack of identity.
An enquiry into the quality assurance process of peer review (crit) is outside the scope of this thesis but could add to knowledge about the way creativity flows across the organisation. That research could address the optimal stages of the design process to carry out peer reviews in order to drive innovation and creativity thereby leveraging the influence highly creative staff for mutual benefit.
7.4 Summary
These guidelines are written at a time of great change within the architectural sector in Ireland which brings with it new opportunities. The conclusions show how strategic choices in relation to structure can deliver competitive advantage through increased organisational creativity. There is no one structure which can be recommended over another. Rather it is the dimensions of structure which need to be considered. These include complexity, formality and de-centralisation. The importance of strategic human resource management for the implementation of strategy is outlined. The benefits of innovation based strategies for the sector are highlighted. The recommendations serve as best practice guidelines for optimal organisational structure of Irish architectural practices that support creativity, thereby enhancing competitive
advantage. The study has identified areas of further study outside the remit of this thesis. This can enhance knowledge in this area by making recommendations in the areas of peer reviews and optimal team size.
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Appendix G: Thesis Schedule