Organizations in competitive markets have no guarantee of continued existence. The intelligent firm in such a setting is the firm that can adapt its structure, the one that has the knowledge necessary to change when change is optimal, andto make enough profit to survive.We argue that the intelligent firm must understand the relationships among its structure, its production inputs (including information technology), and its productivity. When market and technological conditions dictate that a change in structure is optimal, the intelligent firm, the successful firm,willchange. We argue that carefully structured and controlled laboratory experiments provide an excellent source for obtaining the knowledge necessary for organizations to adapt strategically. We illustrate how such experiments can be used in determining the relationships between organizational forms and information system constructs, and in analyzing what mixes yield maximum performance in decision‐theoretic and game‐theoretic settings.