Are Managers Obsolete When Teams Share the Same Culture?
As part of our series of presentations of research reports, this one is from the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University: " Where are managers needed? How culture and coordinative complexity predict the evolution of reporting relationships in organizations" , by Danyang Li, Julien Clement, and Sameer B. Srivastava, which was published in the Journal of Organization Design in March 2026. First, a note: When assessing papers, essays, or media articles, regardless of origin, we use our Organizational DNA Labs (ODL) model, the Unified Validation & Assessment Framework 4.1 (UVAF), in its latest version. Group members conceptually designed and corroborated it, with assistance from and run by “ ASTRA.” The UVAF output judgment purpose is to support critical thinking and serve as a tool for further inquiry into potential use by some of the organizations ODL members work with or advise, as well as for the services we provide to nonprofits. But we always...
