ORGANIZATION STUDIES

A multidisciplinary perspective comprising interplay of:

• diverse levels – personal psychology to international networks

• diverse methodologies – case studies to populations

• diverse theories – individual motives to chaotic systems

This course emphasizes macro-level organization theories, shunning the social psychology of the workplace

Units of action are teams, whole organizations, populations

Persons act as agents on behalf of their organizations

Emergent properties at higher levels of analysis; EX: centralization

“Throwing people back out” – are models of individual attitudes & behaviors indispensible for understanding organizational actions?

EX: Do organizations trust, support, deceive one another?

SOURCE: Knoke (2001: Fig 2-1)

OrganizationPopulations

Organizations

THE ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIETY

Organizational Field

Core Concepts Defined

Organization: A goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity system (Aldrich 1979)

Org Form: Rules or procedures for obtaining and acting upon inputs in order to produce an organizational product or response (Hannan & Freeman 1977)

Org Population: A homogeneous set consisting of all organizations of a specific form or type

Org Field: Aggregate of orgs constituting a recognized area of institutional life (DiMaggio & Powell 1983);

Org Field-Net: Configuration of interorganizational relations among org’l field members (Kenis & Knoke 2002)

Org Society: Totality of all the organizations in a community, or nation, or the international system

Organizational FormsOrg forms can be classified on numerous characteristics. Analyst choices depend on theoretical or empirical objectives.

► McKelvey’s (1982) classification required huge number of measures to create org taxonomy akin to biological species

► Hannan & Carroll (2000) proposed socially constructed corporate identities – externally developed and enforced codes

Some prominent typologies of organizational forms:

LEGAL: proprietorship, partnership, corporation, nonprofit, public

INDUSTRIAL: NAICS replaced SIC in 2000

STRUCTURAL-RELATIONAL: coercive-remunerative-normative; organic-mechanical; instrumental-expressive (SMOs); Mintzberg’s (1979) five basic forms

STRATEGIC APEX

MIDDLE LINE

OPERATING CORE

SUPPORT STAFF

TECHNOSTRUCTURE

Board of Directors President  Executive Committee President’s Staff

VP VP Operations Marketing      Plant Regional Managers Sales Managers      Foremen District Sales Managers

Strategic Planning  Controller Personnel Training

Operations Research  Production Scheduling  Work Study Tech. Clericals 

Legal Counsel  Public Relations  Industrial Relations  Research & Development

Pricing  Payroll  Reception  Mailroom 

 Purchasing Agents Machine Operators Assemblers Salespeople Shippers

Figure 1.2. The Five Basic Parts of an OrganizationSOURCE: Modified afterMintzberg (1979:20 & 33)

ELEMENTS of THEORYDozens of organization theories purport to account for some generalized dimension of organizational behavior

THEORY: Concepts and logically interrelated set of propositions (hypotheses) that explain some significant aspects of observable phenomena

Concept: Key element defined by nominal equivalence or list of necessary & sufficient attributes

Proposition: Sentence with two or more concepts and a transitive verb connecting them.

► Org Sizedf = Aggregate amount of resources (physical, fiscal, human)

► Centralizationdf = Most decisions in org are made hierarchically

► P1: As orgs grow larger, decisionmaking becomes more centralized.

► P2: The more centralized the org, the lower its rate of innovation

Are “Org Theories” REALLY Theories?

Compared to such natural sciences as physics and chemistry, social theories lack ideal-typical axiomatic-deductive structures.

Org theories vary greatly in range of theoretical formalism:

► Positivist perspectives (e.g., economics & org’l ecology) strive for logical rigor & quantification precision

► Interpretive approaches seek accurate representation of subjective meanings that people attach to their org’l worlds

Cumulation of theoretical perspectives might be enhanced by systematizing the underlying assumptions and expectations.

EX: Peli et al. (1994) applied formal logic to org’l ecology and uncovered an error in one core proposition

A TYPOLOGY of ORG THEORIES  Closed System Models Open System Models

Levels ofAnalysis

1900-1930Rational

1930-1960Natural

1960-1970Rational

1970-presentNatural

Social Psychological

Scientific Management (Taylor 1911) Decision Making (Simon 1945)

Human Relations (Whyte 1959) (Likert 1967)

Bounded Rationality (March-Simon 1958)

Organizing (Weick 1969)

Structural Bureaucratic (Weber 1922) Administrative (Fayol 1919)

Cooperative Systems (Barnard 1938) Human Relations (Mayo 1945)

Contingency (Lawrence-Lorsch 1967) Comparative Structure (Woodward 1965) (Pugh et al. 1969) (Blau 1970)

Socio-technical Systems (Miler & Rice 1967)

Ecological Neoclassical Theory of the Firm (Marshall 1890) (Coase 1937)

  Transaction Cost (Williamson 1975)

Evolution (Campbell 1969) (Aldrich 1979)

Social Embeddedness& Network Theories (Benson 1975) (Granovetter 1985)

Population Ecology (Hannan-Freeman 1977) ResourceDependence (Pfeffer-Salancik 1978) Institutional (Selznick 1949) (Meyer-Rowan 1977) (DiMaggio-Powell 1983)

SOURCE: Adapted after Scott (1998:107)