Structure follows Strategy

The economic historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. coined an aphorism that summarizes the characteristics of business structures: structure follows strategy.

From the point of view of its origin, the general idea, not the useful input for business of course, already exists in Antiquity. In the Aristotle's system the structure embodies the formal and perhaps the efficient causes, to achieve certain final cause.

Another way to put it is that that structure is purposeful, and that purpose pertains to some strategy inasmuch strategy is a chain of causes that are deployed to accomplish certain purpose(s). As such, the structure is not something different but a part of the strategy.