Development of an Integrated Organisational Alignment Model from the McKinsey 7S Model and Galbraith's Star Model

Abstract

This thesis introduces the Integrated Organisational Alignment Model (IOAM), a novel diagnostic framework developed by synthesising the McKinsey 7S Model and the Galbraith Star Model into a unified eight-element instrument. The IOAM addresses a gap in the existing literature where no standardised quantitative tool existed for measuring internal organisational alignment across all major design elements simultaneously. A structured 83-item questionnaire was developed, with each section adapted from a validated peer-reviewed instrument, and it was administered to 27 employees across three hierarchical levels at Bürkle Hungary Kft., a Hungarian manufacturing subsidiary of the German Robert Bürkle GmbH group. The empirical application produced an overall alignment index of 3.92, placing the organisation in the moderate alignment band, with processes identified as the primary area of concern and Strategy and Rewards as the strongest elements. A key methodological contribution is the questionnaire's respondent stratification design, which directs each section to the management level with the most relevant knowledge, enabling cross-level perception analysis that revealed significant diagnostic patterns invisible to conventional single-level surveys. Six practical propositions were derived from the findings for the organisation's leadership, demonstrating that the IOAM produces directly actionable outputs without requiring specialist consultancy expertise. The study concludes that the IOAM is a theoretically coherent, empirically workable, and practically accessible diagnostic instrument that represents a meaningful contribution to the organisational design literature, with further validation across larger and more diverse organisational contexts recommended as the natural next step.