A multidimensional organization is an organization that pursues its objectives simultaneously through multiple dimensions (product, region, account, market segment).

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The multidimensional organization was discussed as early as the 1970s.^[1][2] It required the combination of the fall of costs of information, the development of dynamic multidimensional markets, and a new generation of workers and managers, to create this paradigm shift in organization forms.

The multidimensional organization exhibits the following:

1. the overall performance of the firm is reported simultaneously on multiple dimensions and on multiple levels;
2. each of these dimensions has a manager who is held accountable for the contribution of his dimension to the overall performance;
3. these managers depend on each other for required resources; and
4. these managers collectively are accountable for the overall performance.

• The most important reported profit center in its accounting system is the customer, that is on top of a product or a region, as is common in the unit organization.
• Transaction data is owned by a central corporate office, not by units or regions.
• Information regarding the performance of the firm, especially its position with customers, is available to all managers on the different dimensions (an absence of information asymmetry).
• Contrary to the unit organization, market opportunities and resources are organized under separate responsibilities to avoid risk averse behavior with respect to market opportunities

The most basic reason for the rise of the multidimensional organization is that due to the fall in costs of information, customers start to behave in multidimensional ways in terms of their preferences, in the ways in which they select and purchase goods and services, make use of distribution channels, etc. To answer this increasing variety in customer behavior, both in private consumers and between businesses, firms need to increase their internal variety.^[3]

The multidimensional organization also answers the emergence of multidimensional strategies,^[4] in which firms not only pursue market dominance and superior efficiency, but also need to exploit economies of scale.

The multidimensional organization is a new organization form, compared to the U-form, the M-form and the H-form. It transcends the restrictions with the M-form or multi-unit organization, as well as the problems with the matrix-organization. Examples of firms with a multidimensional organization are IBM, Microsoft, and ASML.^[5]

• Outline of organizational theory