Buurtzorg Nederland: Start-Up Process and Organizational Design

Buurtzorg’s practice has been labeled as an innovative management practice. Management innovation refers to the introduction of novelty in an established organization, mainly representing a particular form of organizational change (Birkinshaw et al. 2008, p. 826). Birkinshaw et al. (2008) define management innovation as ‘a difference in form, quality, or state over time of the management activities in an organization, where the change is a novel or unprecedented departure from the past’ (2008, p. 826). They describe management innovation as the invention and implementation of a management practice, process, structure, or technique that is new to the state of the art and is intended to advance organizational goals. The topic of organizational innovation has not received as much attention as other types of innovation such as technology driven, process innovation, strategic innovation and service innovations (Birkinshaw et al. 2008). Given the purpose of the current book it is interesting to see how Buurtzorg’s organizational innovation identifies with the main concern of a client care focus and how it fits in the current management debates on organizational innovation and how it can contribute to the existing knowledge. An in-depth reflection will be presented in Chap. 11 of this book. This current chapter aims to provide some background of Buurtzorg and addresses the following questions: What did the motivation phase for starting Buurtzorg look like? What are the main phases of its organizational innovation? How is Buurtzorg organized? What are the lessons from Buurtzorg’s start-up process of management innovation?