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Not all organizations are identical. Essentially, an organization defines itself in terms of its primary value creation: What does this consist of? And which specific environment is this value creation oriented toward? The SGMM understands the primary environment as the environment toward which an organization’s primary value creation is oriented.

Primary value creation and the primary environment shape an organization’s identity and self-concept. This also includes how it deals with the concerns, interests, demands, and disturbances it faces. The terms primary value creation and primary environment also indicate that organizations can have several purposes or functions. They can be multi-purpose or multi-function systems required to cope with manifold heterogeneous expectations.

Overall, organizations can be typified in terms of three main distinctions: First, some organizations align their primary value creation with markets (the economy as an environmental sphere), while others provide a different type of primary value creation. Second, organizations whose value creation aims to achieve a financially realizable increase in value for their owners, while others emphasize other values. Third, some organizations are privately owned, others publicly.

On this basis, we distinguish six types of organizations:

• First, organizations are enterprises if they align their value creation with markets and thus with the economy as their environmental sphere. They generate added value for their owners. They are privately owned. Enterprise ownership is more or less fully tradable in the form of shares or other forms of participation.

• Second, organizations are public enterprises if the state is either the owner or at least a majority shareholder. Such enterprises must align themselves [26] simultaneously with two environmental spheres: politics and the economy. Typically, public enterprises include the state postal service, state railway, state providers of communication services or public water supply and waste disposal. Their value creation is (at least partially) state-regulated, e.g., if critical infrastructures or politically desired services (public service) are concerned.

• Third, organizations are public organizations if, in contrast to public enterprises, they do not orient themselves toward the economy, but instead create sovereign value (e.g., public security). Based on a government mandate, this type of value creation is oriented toward the environmental spheres of politics and law. Examples of public organizations include the army and police or public administrations (e.g., building authorities, citizen registration offices, inland revenue, etc.).

• Fourth, organizations are nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) if they are typically oriented toward the environmental spheres of the public and ethics, but if their value creation – in contrast to public organizations – is not legitimized by a state mandate. NGOs are oriented toward societal concerns (e.g., the protection of human rights, nature, or animals).

• Fifth, organizations are nonprofit organizations (NPOs) if their foundation and continued existence are motivated not by increasing value for their owners but by collective self-help or by added societal, cultural, symbolic, or intellectual value. Typical organizations include ones committed to their members’ concerns (e.g., cultural associations, sports clubs, neighborhood and elderly aid associations, etc.).

• Sixth, organizations are pluralistic organizations if several of the above organizational characteristics apply simultaneously (e.g., public hospitals or private universities). Their value creation is typically characterized by multiple orientations toward several environmental spheres, by heterogeneous notions of success, and often also by hybrid ownership. In such organizations, effective management as a reflective design practice is associated with special challenges.

In sum, different organizations are characterized by different environmental orientations. These environmental orientations also exhibit specific notions of valuation and success. While efficiency and productivity standards are hugely important in the economy, other criteria are central in politics (e.g., obtaining a majority, increasing power). Key criteria in public administration, as such oriented toward politics and law, include the rule of law, equality of rights, and legal certainty. [27]

Consequently, these organizations have different identities, rationality criteria, and performance measures with regard to gauging and evaluating appropriate, meaningful, legitimate, reasonable, and desirable action (Schedler & Rüegg-Stürm, 2014).