Organizational Debt
The interest companies pay when their structure, policies, and culture stay fixed as the world changes — i.e. the accumulation of non-investment towards long-term planning.
Origin
The concept extends programmer Ward Cunningham's "technical debt" metaphor, which he coined in 1992 after reading Metaphors We Live By. Cunningham explained to his boss at Wyatt Software that "shipping first-time code is like going into debt," requiring timely refactoring to avoid accumulating interest. The organizational debt extension applies this financial metaphor to organizational structures, policies, and culture that lag behind changing conditions. While technical debt focuses on code quality, organizational debt addresses systemic inertia and the cost of delayed organizational evolution.