ORGANIZATION STUDIES

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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?
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THE ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIETY
Organization Populations
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Organizational Field
Organizations
SOURCE Knoke (2001 Fig 2-1)
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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 orgl field members (Kenis Knoke
2002) Org Society Totality of all the
organizations in a community, or nation, or the
international system
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Organizational Forms
Org forms can be classified on numerous
characteristics. Analyst choices depend on
theoretical or empirical objectives.
? McKelveys (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) Mintzbergs (1979) five basic forms
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STRATEGIC APEX
Board of Directors
President  
Executive Committee Presidents Staff
MIDDLE LINE
Legal Counsel   Public
Relations   Industrial Relations   Research
Development
Strategic Planning   Controller   Personnel
Training
VP VP
Operations Marketing          
Plant Regional Managers
Sales Managers           Foremen
District
Sales Managers
TECHNOSTRUCTURE
SUPPORT STAFF
Operations Research   Production
Scheduling   Work Study Tech.
Clericals  
Pricing   Payroll  
Reception   Mailroom  
OPERATING CORE
  Purchasing Agents Machine Operators
Assemblers Salespeople Shippers
Figure 1.2. The Five Basic Parts of an
Organization SOURCE Modified afterMintzberg
(197920 33)
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ELEMENTS of THEORY
Dozens 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
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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 orgl
ecology) strive for logical rigor
quantification precision ? Interpretive
approaches seek accurate representation of
subjective meanings that people attach to their
orgl worlds
Cumulation of theoretical perspectives might be
enhanced by systematizing the underlying
assumptions and expectations. EX Peli et al.
(1994) applied formal logic to orgl ecology and
uncovered an error in one core proposition
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A TYPOLOGY of ORG THEORIES
SOURCE Adapted after Scott (1998107)