The Dynamics of Delayering: Changing Management Structures in Three Countries*

The 1990s witnessed significant changes in organizational design philosophy. Unique to the 1990s were prescriptions for restructuring involving delayering (the planned vertical compression of managerial levels of hierarchy) ( Keuning and Opheij, 1994 ; Peters, 1992 ). What did this mean in practice? The current understanding of delayering can be encapsulated in a ‘delayering thesis’. However, outside of the USA and UK there has been limited...