Professor Hinings has been concerned with issues of organizational design and changes in those designs throughout his career. He has contributed significantly to the development of organization theory through the study of the determinants of organizational structure (the Aston work); the development of the structural contingencies theory of power; working with action and phenomenological critiques in the study of large scale organizational design changes (archetypes and tracks); and the study of management and change in professional service firms and sport, both of which have been formally recognized by the University of Alberta as areas of research excellence.