The discipline of Organizational Design can be summarized as the research of the satisfactory balance among division of labor and coordination.

Fordist organizational approach was aimed to maximize division of labor in order to achieve higher efficiency. Post-fordist organizations tend to improve integration among units in order to increase customer satisfaction and effectiveness.

This trend is consistent with an increasing interest on the actual structure of activities (business processes) performed by the organization. This approach, the so called "process-based view of organizations" counts several techniques.

The most widely known among the many are Total Quality Management, Business Process Re-engineering and Enterprise Resource Planning systems. However, these techniques are highly engineering-oriented.

Their implementation often underestimates or totally ignores social and organizational variables that do have some impact on processes. Trust, reputation, identity, leadership styles and knowledge networks are crucial variables in order to manage or redesign organizational processes in an efficient and successfully way.

Knownetlab carries out research and consultancy in this area by focusing on the social and organizational variables affecting the processes' performance.

Our laboratory build up a methodology which integrates in an original way the typical tools of process engineering and the social and cognitive aspects surrounding the work team activities.