We developed an experimental method that can be used to study organization design and grouping decisions more specifically. We demonstrate the method in a study with 285 participants. The participants were asked to group a set of nine roles into units using card-sorting. The role descriptions indicated that there were interdependencies between some of the roles. Participants’ grouping decisions were quantified and compared against an algorithmic solution that minimized coordination costs. It was found that a relatively small difference in task complexity between groups greatly affected participants’ performance.

The files that are uploaded here contain the raw data and "distance scores" for study of how people make organization design decisions. See the appendices in the article for tips on how to set up similar studies.

An English translation of the survey can be viewed here (note that it contains only one of the four conditions described in the corresponding manuscript and represented in the data set): https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90575966/ORM-study-example-of-participant-task-English-translation