• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "Controversies in Medicine and Neuroscience: Through the Prism of History, Neurobiology, and Bioethics (2023) is well worth reading and studying. It should be standard on all doctor’s bookshelves and among the interested laymen."

    - Russell L. Blaylock, President of Theoretical Neuroscience Research

Organisational Anatomy: A Manager’s Guide to a Healthy Organisation

This book offers a discussion of a new management concept, “Organisational Anatomy”, which views organisational processes and functions from a biological perspective. This approach naturally explains the ongoing internal and external organisational processes and optimum configuration of different organisations. Organisations are live creatures which are breathing, functioning, moving and developing inside their specific environments. Biological examples offer a useful way of making sense of complex ideas, because they can be related to everyday existence. As such, this allows the reader to intuitively understand the organisations where they work and with which they interact.

By classifying different types of organisations and looking at their biological functions, Organisational Anatomy links existing theories and discusses five archetypes of organisations, namely producers, knowledge-dependent, location-dependent, donor-dependent and state-affiliated organisations. By looking into their specific features, the characteristics of organisations of different ages and levels of maturity, the access and utilisation of resources, and the development of productive external relations, this book allows insights into the role of each function in achieving superior business performance.

The Organisational Anatomy approach allows the development of a holistic picture, and will allow businesses to achieve higher performance and recognise problems and difficulties by considering organisational pathologies and diseases.

This book is part of a series. View the full series, "Towards the Twenty-First Century Organization ", here.


Oleg Konovalov has over 25 years of experience operating businesses both in the UK and internationally. He received his doctoral degree from the Durham University Business School, UK. His research areas include the structure and forms of organisations, organisational and interpersonal ties, trust, positioning, and access to resources.

""Organisational Anatomy: A Manager’s Guide to a Healthy Organisation" is a unique paradigm shift on business growth and planning that helps leaders develop a mindset that can focus on identifying specific problems and broad trends that can affect the future of your business."

Charles Franklin Small Business Trends, 7.5.16

"In debates over campaign financing, the US presidential elections of 2012 saw the question arise of whether companies could be classed as ‘people’, and therefore enjoy certain rights to make political contributions. It was a heated issue, and a question that is impossible to solve to everyone's satisfaction. But whether or not a company is a 'person', it certainly functions as an organism in many important ways and can be treated and analysed as such. In an insightful yet pragmatic book, Oleg Konovalov gets under the skin of the company as an organism, and explains how to help it function best. A highly useful read for any manager."

Courtney Fingar Editor-in-Chief, fDi Magazine

"Oleg Konovalov’s book uses medical metaphors to make the vision of organizations accessible to an audience that is not limited to the ivory tower of academic research. This vision brings together numerous insights from many different areas of academic research, and organizational/managerial experience. The book offers help to current and would-be managers who try to systematize their understanding of the life of organizations."

Professor Laszlo Polos Durham University Business School, UK

"[This book offers] an eloquent and ultimate account of a wide range of examples of criteria to consider when identifying and dealing with common organisational illnesses and problems. Describing a peculiar array of similarities between organisations and living beings, this book is thought-provoking and very practical, but also opens interesting areas for further research."

Dr Dayana Yermekbayeva National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of the Republic of Kazakhstan

"Organisational Anatomy is a ground-breaking and sophisticated new lens for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs, allowing increasing the performance of their organisations, and also an interesting tool to diagnose problems and find innovative solutions."

Paul Noon UK Trade and Investment

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-8885-0

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-8885-1

Release Date: 3rd March 2016

Pages: 176

Price: £41.99

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