<p>Traditional, corporate-level risk mitigation procedures and management-led performance improvement efforts tend to ignore the relationship dynamics of Architect-Engineer design teams, and instead focus on the credentials and abilities of the individual designers, the contractual framework surrounding the individual projects, and the process for inspecting and controlling the quality of the team&rsquo;s output, the design. Management may tacitly acknowledge the complex nature of the design process, but the notion of design teams as complex systems, or more precisely, Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), with their inherently unpredictable behaviors, is not typically considered. </p><p> The research herein analyzed the team dynamics of 113 Architect-Engineer design projects to determine if teams that leveraged or embraced (deliberately or unknowingly) the <i>self-organizing</i> and <i>sense-making </i> properties of CAS, to include improvisation, an emphasis on intra- and cross-boundary communication, broad participation in decision-making, autonomy in managing resources, and deliberate use of conflict and uncertainty to alter standard behavior patterns, delivered more successful projects than teams whose leadership attempted (again, deliberately or unknowingly) to <i> overcome</i> those same CAS properties with detailed design or quality control (QC) procedures, a strong organizational identity that informed behavior, concentrated decision-making authority with a focus on efficiency of effort, and swift resolution of conflict. The parameters for measuring project success included adherence to schedule, project profitability, design errors, contractual disputes or litigation, and customer satisfaction. </p><p> An analysis of the data utilizing non-parametric analytical tools, to include Mann-Whitney Rank Sum analysis, calculation of Kendall&rsquo;s tau-b, and ordinal logistic regression, reveals that while encouraging a design team to improvise can improve project outcomes, fostering or allowing self-organization in general is not associated with improved project performance. On the other hand, an environment that promotes team members&rsquo; sense-making abilities (although the use of conflict or noise as tools to promote adaptive thinking remains problematic) leads to improvements in project success factors. Finally, the results suggest that Architect-Engineer design team management is not a linear enterprise, and that in determining project success, the relationships between design team members may be as important as the technical competency of the designers and the design or quality control procedures they follow. </p>

O tema desta dissertação é a organização da Engenharia em empresas com múltiplas unidades. Discutimos a centralização e a descentralização das atividades de Engenharia utilizando o conceito da organização como sistema de processamento de informações. A partir desse ponto de vista, comparamos duas empresas multinacionais de diferentes setores industriais. Concluímos que as organizações procuram um arranjo organizacional que equilibre as suas necessidades de processamento de informações com a respectiva capacidade de processamento que possuem. Concluímos também que a descentralização das atividades de Engenharia é influenciada pela complexidade da interface entre do produto com o usuário. / This dissertation studies the engineering organizational structure in companies with multipleunits. Starting from the concept of the organization as an information processing system, we study the centralization and decentralization of engineering activities, comparing two multinational companies, from different industries. We finished this study concluding that companies seek organizational structures with informational processing requirements. We have also concluded that the desentralization of engineering activities is influenced by the complexity of the company\'s product/user interface.

O tema desta dissertação é a organização da Engenharia em empresas com múltiplas unidades. Discutimos a centralização e a descentralização das atividades de Engenharia utilizando o conceito da organização como sistema de processamento de informações. A partir desse ponto de vista, comparamos duas empresas multinacionais de diferentes setores industriais. Concluímos que as organizações procuram um arranjo organizacional que equilibre as suas necessidades de processamento de informações com a respectiva capacidade de processamento que possuem. Concluímos também que a descentralização das atividades de Engenharia é influenciada pela complexidade da interface entre do produto com o usuário. / This dissertation studies the engineering organizational structure in companies with multipleunits. Starting from the concept of the organization as an information processing system, we study the centralization and decentralization of engineering activities, comparing two multinational companies, from different industries. We finished this study concluding that companies seek organizational structures with informational processing requirements. We have also concluded that the desentralization of engineering activities is influenced by the complexity of the company\'s product/user interface.