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The article reports the author's opinions regarding a paper written by Colonel Urwick. While the author found many of Urwick's statements about the work "Papers in the Science of Administration" to be valid, he found some of them to be misleading. Topics of discussion include organizational structure, organizational behavior, business size, and the diffusion of technological innovations.

The article discusses methods of quality control in the operations of a fine paper mill. Quality control involves statistical models as well as the arrangement of operations, psychology of personnel and structure of the organization. The application of a new paper cutting machine after 1959 led to quality control problems in a Wolvercote paper plant. Changes in operations to increase the number of paper sorters, primarily women, are discussed. Women inspectors were trained to oversee the sorters.

The article discusses the report and research papers published by the Great Britain Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, pertaining to industrial relations. The Commission was set up on April 8, 1965 and reported in June 1968. In addition to its report, it published between June 1966 and May 1968 thirteen substantial research papers. The report is closely argued and its recommendations proceed logically from the argument. It begins with certain assumptions. Those who hoped to see the Commission indict the unions and impose legal restraints upon them have been disappointed. The Report as a whole is thus a consistent, restrained, dignified document concerned equally with realities and civilized standards. Reading the Report and the research papers, one is struck by the concordance between the approaches of the researchers and that of the Commission. The first part of the paper is mainly cast in the form of a lecture to management. The studies of Employers' Associations make one wonder why they were included in the terms of reference of the Commission. For occupational psychologists it could be the practical introduction to all those aspects of industry, which are left outside their syllabus.

The Southern Policy Papers are issued by the Southern Policy Committee for the purpose of stimulating interest in questions of public importance in the South. In the announcement concerning the series, the Committee states that it "does not necessarily approve of or agree with opinions expressed in the papers.' For those who perhaps do not know of the Southern Policy Committee, it should be noted that it is a comparatively recent organization, with a General Committee and local Committees in several of the Southern states. It seems to be designed essentially as an action group, principally "to encourage the formulation and recommendation of desirable public policies whether by groups or individuals, and as a means to this end to encourage persons who possess the proper qualifications to undertake political activity ; and, to extend the discussions begun in local committees to the surrounding communities for the purpose of preparing the general body of citizens for more intelligent and socially-minded political action, and for the purpose of forcing political leaders to face the real issues involved.

The study of the relationship between consultation and decision processes in an industrial research laboratory showed the efficacy of multidirectional consultation coupled with a pattern of shared, decentralized decision making. The loose, decentralized pattern was closely associated with more science-oriented activity, while the hierarchical pattern with more practical or organizationally relevant activities. The relationships obtained between this loose or hierarchical pattern and performance were mediated by coordination, adequacy of work expectations, and level of member involvement. The results also suggested that when decision centers are consistent with consultation centers, implying a congruence between authority and expertise, the overall structure of the laboratory is less important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comment on sociologist Peter M. Blau's recent article "A Formal Theory of Differentiation in Organizations," published in the April 1970 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." According to the author, in his article Blau reviews a number of interesting empirical findings, but whether or not they justify theoretical generalizations at a high level of abstraction is a moot question. Moreover, no one can take exception to efforts to construct generalizations which in turn suggest hypotheses for research. Confirmation of such hypotheses obviously lends credence to the earlier generalizations while disconfirmation or a null finding renders them questionable. In this article the author, shows that under certain conditions and given only one of the empirical findings, almost all of the other findings necessarily follow. He does this, first, by constructing a hypothetical model of organizational structure and doing algebraic manipulations on its properties, and, second, by pointing out some difficulties that arise when one controls for organizational size.

The relationship between the quantity and quality of scientific output of 120 university physicists was studied. Although these two variables are highly correlated, some physicists produce many papers of little significance and others produce a Jew papers of great significance. The responses of the community of physicists to these distinct patterns of research publication were investigated. Quality of output is more significant than quantity in eliciting recognition through the receipt of awards, appointment to prestigious academic departments, and being widely known to one's colleagues. The reward system operates to encourage creative scientists to be highly productive, to divert the energies of less creative physicists into other channels, and to produce a higher correlation between quantity and quality of output in the top departments than in the weaker departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports the author's opinions regarding aspects of organizational behavior. The author focuses on examining employees' need for control in and outside of the organizational setting. A study focusing on the job satisfaction levels of managers of pulp mills is discussed. The opinions of Julian Rotter regarding the subject of employee behavior are also included.

This paper reports data about the impact on employee job attitudes of a program of labor-management consultation, the co-operative program at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). It examines the relationship between the vigor of the co-operative program in each unit and the job motivation, interest in innovation, organizational identification, and acceptance of change shown by employees in each unit. The effects of employee influence in the immediate work group are compared to the effects of influence through the larger co-operative program. Differences between professional engineering employees and skilled nonprofessional employees concerning their reactions to opportunities for participation are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper holds that the Du Pont Company has been one of the earliest and most important contributors to the advancement of systematic management. The development of this concept is traced through different stages of management—"Caesar," successorship, nonconformist, and adaptive management—beginning at the plant level of Repauno Chemical and Eastern Dynamite and rising ultimately to the administration of the entire Du Pont organization. The paper also examines the conditions of success of top-management group work at Du Pont. It finds that these conditions seem to be the result of a felicitous combination of a rationalist approach and a pragmatic approach, carried out by a carefully selected group of men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that evolutionary processes occur in the environments of organizations. Ideal types of environment, originally conceptualized by Emery and Trist, are elaborated and extended. A review of recent literature gives evidence of the decreasing autonomy and the increasing interdependence of organizations. Four approaches to interorganizational analysis are reviewed and found inadequate to deal with present-day conditions. This paper then outlines a perspective which allows any organization, its transactions, and the environment itself to be viewed in a common conceptual framework. Two hypotheses are discussed: (I) that organizational change is increasingly externally induced; and (2) that organizational adaptability is a function of ability to learn and to perform according to changes in the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments regarding the essay "Relationship in Organization," by V. A. Graicunas, originally featured in the March 1933 issue of "Bulletin of the International Management Institute" and reprinted in the book "Papers on the Science of Administration." The author points out that the essay gained its present fame in its reprint in the "Papers." However, the publication did not include the original preface which presents valuable information regarding the author's knowledge on certain considerations necessary in determining a proper span of control. The preface is included in the article.

The article presents Eric Flamholtz's response to Joshua Ronen's critique of his paper "Assessing the Validity of a Theory of Human Resource Value: A Field Study." The author compares his reaction to Ronen's review with a comment made by Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's book "A Study of Scarlet." Flamholtz claims that Ronen distorted the method of his study and makes clear that his model was designed to test whether a set of hypothesized determinants were used by personnel managers in their human resources management, rather than just determine an employee's worth to an organization.

This paper has a dual purpose: to build a conceptual approach to authoritative relations in organizations that permits a reasonable interpretation of existing research; and to encourage significant future research. Its focus is upon several concepts common in the study of authority, which are often treated as being more or less mutually exclusive but which may also be usefully considered as interacting overlays of authoritative relations. Thus, in this paper authoritative relations are conceived as "integrative," that is, as having "traditional," "functional," and "behavioral" component overlays. In the application of the integrative conceptual approach illustrated here, the crucial issue is the increase of the congruence of the several overlays so that they substantially reinforce one another. The relevant literature is sampled, both to illustrate applied techniques and to sketch an organization structure appropriate for increasing the congruence of the several overlays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and operation of linkage mechanisms constitute a major task for administrators of systems in complex and rapidly changing environments. The paper describes four different assessments of the needs for change and the linkage mechanisms these assessments lead to, their costs, and their effects on the system as a whole. For systems in a turbulent environment, subsystems and also linkage mechanisms need to be clearly differentiated, and supported by integration into the system as a whole. Where system support is inadequate, linkage problems tend to provoke a multiplication of innovative subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some of the implications of technological modifications and improvements on industrial management in two types of advanced manufacturing systems displaying flow-like characteristics and designated "process" and "quasi-process" systems. Technological advances often result in the structuring of functional relationships and responsibilities, and affect development of an organizational control system which includes human, procedural and mechanical elements. This analysis is based on field research studies as well as studies reported in the literature. Theoretical considerations and empirical findings are set forth to account for organizational developments such as the simplification or complication of organizational structure. Finally, the managerial-supervisory job functions emerging in these advanced systems provide a basis for clarifying the role of supporting groups and added considerations for a key executive function such as managerial manpower planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two different ways of measuring the distribution of power in sixteen health and welfare organizations. Participation in decision making about the allocation of organizational resources and the determination of organizational policy was strongly related to the degree of complexity as measured by (1) the number of occupational specialities, (2) the amount of professional training, and (3) the amount of professional activity and was weakly related to the degree of formalization as measured by the degree of job codification and the amount of rule observation. Except for rule observation, hierarchy of authority or the reliance on the chain of command for work decisions was not as strongly related to each of these measures of organizational structure. A partial correlational analysis between each measure of the distribution of power and the five structural properties indicates that participation in decision making retains an association with the first two indicators of complexity and the first indicator of formalization even when the other five variables are controlled simultaneously. The hierarchy of authority retains an association with the amount of professional activity and the amount of rule observation. At the same time, it is important to recognize that these two measures of the distribution of power are themselves strongly interrelated. When decisions about the allocation of organizational resources are centralized, then there is a centralization of work decisions as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the Matrix model of organizational analysis and a partial empirical test of its descriptive validity. The model, concerned with the impact of technology and personal discretion on organization structure, offers a series of propositions about task-unit differentiation and integration. Two major propositions provide the focus of the empirical section of this paper: (1) task units become increasingly autonomous from the administrative system as the structural design moves from the Routine to Heuristic organizational strategy; and (2) task unit members become increasingly autonomous from supervision as the structural design moves from Routine to Heuristic. Data from 828 task units generated from 18 attitude survey items are used to test the first proposition; the data support the proposition, and modifications of the model are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristics associated with the creative individual and the identification of these characteristics have been explored in a companion paper in this Journal. Once this important task has been accomplished, the equally significant administrative question of the optimum utilization of this creative talent arises. The effective utilization of creative abilities within a goal seeking organization is conditioned by many variables including: top management's attitudinal posture regarding the value of creativeness and innovation; the organizational slack present in the resource inputs, and, certainly, the organizational climate created by the organization's design, control system, and reward system. Given the characteristics of the creative individual and given the recruitment of persons with creative abilities, this paper explores the issue of the organizational climate most conducive to the generation and maintenance of constructive creative responses oriented toward the organization's goals. We will first explore the question of what is the administrative hierarchy attempting to accomplish when it establishes a given organizational design. Within this framework, the organizational design of traditional administrative theory will be superimposed upon our model of the creative individual as developed previously. Given the basic incongruities of the "fit," the question of the possible variation of organizational structures to fit variable purposes arises. Finally, implications for possible organizational designs needed to utilize creative talent effectively will be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explanation of organizational structure has always been an important issue to administrative theorists. This paper investigates the structure of manufacturing operations and therefore starts from the premise that technological factors are most crucial. One current approach to structure and technology, comparative analysis, has studied the overall context but at a highly aggregative level. The "constituent" approach, on the other hand, has investigated intraorganizational relationships but at the expense of empirically verifiable theory. We develop a heuristic computer model capable of testing existing constituent theories. The model uses work flow data as technological inputs and produces a structural configuration as output. It employs administrative rules (based on Thompson's propositions for structuring the technical core) to convert inputs into outputs. The inputs, outputs, and rules are formally represented using list processing concepts. Operationalizing the formal concepts has been satisfactorily explored in a pilot study of a small manufacturing firm. Testing existing constituent theory is just the initial phase of this project. It is possible to develop new structural theory for the technical core and the rest of the organization, and to engage in a form of comparative analysis to judge the effects of varying contexts. Moreover, the fact that a structural configuration is produced implies utility in the area of design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the reorganization of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) under the presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower. The author provides an analysis on the performance of NSC under the administration of former president Harry S. Truman and identifies its weakness. Some of which is the informal nature of NSC proceedings during that time and that NSC had been always late in the policy-making process in matters concerning national security. But with the powerful tandem of Robert Cutler and Eisenhower, several significant changes occurred in the NSC. The NSC structure was strengthened and the Council mechanism was implemented for all major foreign and military policy-making.

The Consultant Committee was appointed by the Council to expedite program planning. Five sections of contributed papers were organized by the committee. The names of these sections are not presented here, because of the Council's policy of not singling out any section or paper as being contributed. The Committee believes it has served a useful function in the organization of the current program. A Consultation Committee might well be appointed another year, if the Council plans a program organized along the lines of this year's meeting.

This paper reports an investigation into the relationships between the size and complexity and the relative size of the administrative component of one type of organization. Contrary to Previous findings based on other data, it was found that the relative size oft he administrative component decreased as organizational size increased. It is suggested that, other things being equal, the relative size c/the administrative component (1) decreases as size increases, (2) increases as the number of places at which work is performed increases, and (3) increases as the number of tasks performed at the same place increases. These hypotheses are highly tentative, but are consistent with existing research findings, including the evidence resented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociometric techniques have been used most frequently in the study of small group, structure. The utilization of sociometry in the study of large and complex social systems, such as the bureaucratic organization, has generally been limited to the construction of indices, that is, frequency of communication, or amount of out-group as compared with in-group contact. These indices are then treated as characteristics of individual members of the organization, and the structural context in which they were developed is generally lost. The use of sociometry to determine the overall structure of a complex organization probably owes its rarity to an absence both of basic structural concepts and of efficient methods for the manipulation of large masses of sociometric data. This paper proposes both a set of structural concepts and a methodology, which together state a practical approach to the sociometric analysis of complex structures. Intensive study of a complex organization will generally require a more complete description of structure than that provided by the standard organization chart. It is the purpose of this paper to present an objective and reproduceable method for arriving at this description. The method consists of an analysis of the role relationships reported by members of the organization at a given point in time.

We have shown that it is sometimes more valuable to examine factors which cut across situations than it is to try to make overall comparisons of one situation with another. Thus it was seen that the level of scientific performance is about the same, in general, for physiological scientists working in organizations as it is for those not working in organizations. This does not mean that the same dynamics are operating in each of these situations. Actually, persons in research organizations usually have the advantage of funds and facilities, but they usually lack the advantage of freedom which the scientist who does not work in a research organization generally has. Similarly, an understanding of these two important variables, plus the variable of institutional value for the type of productivity we are studying, helps us to understand the differences in performance measured in academic, governmental, and industrial settings. Of particular practical importance is the manner in which different combinations of funds and freedom are reflected in output. It is probably not too bold to go beyond the strict confines of the data and to interpret the ‘funds’ variable as representative of all the material aids to productivity: equipment, assistants, space, and so forth. ‘Freedom’ may then be seen as representative of the class of environmental variables which facilitate individual motive satisfaction. We have other data which indicate that the need for freedom is particularly important for scientists. Without it, their satisfactions which derive from the actual content of their work (i.e., intrinsic job satisfactions, as contrasted with extrinsic job satisfactions-those enjoyed off the job, like salary) are very low. In view of these considerations, several conclusions may be drawn: If the conditions under which the scientist works do not allow him intrinsic job satisfaction, then providing him with the finest equipment and facilities may not stimulate him to produce. On the other hand, even the most motivated of scientists are not likely to accomplish much if they are hampered by a severe lack of facilities to work with. Although we must be very cautious in social science when making metric comparisons, it is tempting to conclude from our data that the state of science will be better off when scientists have a ‘medium’ amount of each of these ‘commodities’ than it would be if scientists had a great deal of one class but very little of the other class (cf. Table 2). One would think that administrators in academic environments could make their greatest contribution to the scientists working in this setting by attempting to supply better facilities and more adequate financial support for research. On the other hand, in governmental and industrial settings, and especially where the scientist works as a member of a research institute, administrators should pay particular attention to providing maximum opportunity for free pursuit of creative thinking, lest the advantages of organized research be outweighed by losses in individual motivation and creativity. With respect to the initial question, then, concerning the relative advantages of research in organizations as compared to research outside of organizations, a limited cross organizational survey seems to indicate that, under present circumstances, either of the two settings may produce favorable results, but that each can benefit by attempting to obtain the advantages usually associated with the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a concept of operational gaming with important new features and describes its implementation. One of these new features is the incorporation in the model of computer generated play whose character is determined by the action of the players as well as computer programmed stochastic characteristics. The paper 1. Presents the concept of operational gaming simulation and its potential usefulness. 2. Describes what has been done to implement this concept in one area of application for economic research and instruction. 3. Pictures this application to a stock market in sufficient detail so that persons who might be interested in using this model for research and/or instructional purposes are aware of its nature and availability. The development of the model into a usable instrument is described and the procedures being used to give it realism and validity are discussed during the course of this presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model for explaining structural variations between work units within the complex organization is presented. Based upon an analysis of the impact of task difficulty and task variability on intraorganizational structure, a taxonomy of alternative work-unit structures is derived. The taxonomy suggests that work units within a complex organization can be classified into three basic structural modes (1) a systematized mode, (2) a service mode, and (3) a group mode; with variations in each mode. However, the structural distinction between modes is one of kind or "type," while the distinctions within modes is one of degree. Data on 120 work units within a large government employment-security agency are presented. Empirical support was found for the taxonomy. The work units sampled at six different levels of structure did discriminate empirically on the bases of task difficulty and variability using a fixed effects model, and were shown to fit in different cells of the taxonomy as predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategic-contingencies theory of intraorganizational power proposed by Hickson et al. hypothesizes that the power of subunits results from contingent dependencies among them created by unspecified combinations of coping with uncertainty, workflow centrality (immediacy and pervasiveness), and nonsubstitutability. This paper reports on methods devised to test this theory with alternative forms of data on seven organizations, or power systems, of four subunits each. The theory is refined by the exploration of different patterns of variables related to successive levels of power, and the tentative ordering of these variables in terms of their consequences for power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the concept of organizational climate and examines the relationships to be expected between different aspects of climate and various dimensions of organizational structure and context. The suggested relationships are examined using data from 387 respondents working at all levels in 14 different work organizations. Examination of the effect of hierarchical level on perceptions of organizational climate showed significant variations by level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the impact of management level and technological groupings on management autonomy structure. A task unit aggregation index of technology was the better predictor, except when the items were most task specific. Level of management did not predict. Technology is conditioned by plant norms, management level, and task specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three agencies selected for in-depth study were classified as "small," "medium," and "large:" (relative to the San Francisco area). This paper analyzes the relationships between the selected agencies performance and preceptions of their organizations' environment and integration. The size variable, per se, was not an accurate indicator of agency success. Increased size complicates management's task of coordination, but the results of this study empirically demonstrate that the key to successful performance is a management style which properly takes account of the environmental, task, and structural demands unique to the agency segment of the advertising industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests that the factors which limit the development and use of work measurement and work design in practice are those features of the organization which cause distortion of the measurements and restrict the application of the results. Some directions for changing this situation are given. Current industrial techniques both for visually observable working activities and for process type jobs, lag behind research practices in several notable areas. Most industrial techniques are very old and used by modestly trained technicians. The fear of mis-use of more sophisticated techniques, it is suggested, inhibits their introduction in practice.
The paper then continues by discussing four areas where techniques are needed or available. Some recent developments in each area are briefly discussed. Finally, some points regarding how the research worker should view the problems of their possible misuse are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of scientific management and increasing rigor in the social sciences, there has been wide appeal in the idea that a simple geometric model could provide predictive and prescriptive information on the growth and design of social and economic organizations. And in the recent years that have seen the development of organic and open system theories of organizational behavior, the idea of biological geometries and related biological notions such as "homeostatic equilibrium" have been increasingly used by the social scientists to construct their models. The new behavioral scientists and organizational theorists have been particularly attracted to this course by the chance to legitimize their activity since it leads readily to quantification. Increasingly, attempts are being made to find empirical data which will support analogies to phenomena well established in the biological sciences. In the rush to become quantitative--and thus scientific--leaps of fancy have been taken to explain data generated from all kinds of economic, social, and political organizations. In this paper, the writer reappraises some attempts to fit empirical data derived from organizational statistics to biological and geometric models. The purpose is not so much to compare one analogy with another, as it is to suggest there is a lack of evidence for these biological or geometric analogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of organizations has long been of interest to students of administration. Parkinson's observation of the disproportionate increase of "chiefs" to "Indians," as organizations increase in size, is not supported by the data presented in this paper. We have found in the five sets of organizations studied here that the relationship between organization unit size and supervision ratio is logarithmic in form and negative in slope. Several reasons for this finding are suggested and explored; no rationale, however, has yet been experimentally proven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past several years, many psychiatric establishments have come to express an ideology often referred to as the "therapeutic milieu." While the distinctions between such a credo and an ethic of "custody" are well understood, the differences between the two types of arrangements in terms of organizational structure are less clear. In general, however, the former tends to take the shape of a bureaucracy, while the latter more closely approximates a diffuse and flattened authority system. Such a trend appears to be related to changing relationships between hospitals and the larger community as well as to increased autonomy on the part of the clients such institutions serve. Within the debureaucratized milieu, however, important processes of change seem to take place which importantly affect the content and functions of communication channels, the processes of decision making with respect both to clinical and administrative matters, the attitudes that staff have toward themselves and toward patients, the strategies which staff employ to articulate appropriate conduct for the clients, and the meaning of the institution for both patients and staff. This paper attempts to describe the historical forces shaping recent innovations in hospital administration, to set forth the organizational features of the "therapeutic milieu," and to trace the interpersonal consequences of the debureaucratized establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain variation in the formalization of administrative practices current in the teaching departments of a large midwestern university. Variation was noted in the degree of formalization in the following practices: hiring procedures, evaluation of performers, and handling of unsatisfactory faculty members. This variation was analyzed to determine its relationship to: department size, frequency of decision making, department prestige, supply-demand ratio, and humanistic orientation. Frequency of decision making emerged as the most significant of these. Humanistic orientation was found to be associated with the subject matter taught by the department faculty and with degree of visibility of the training given by the department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on experimental research conducted with small groups performing under three different organization structures--tight, loose-written, and loose-oral. The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of structure on groups required to make decisions on relatively complex problems. Further refinements were made on work previously done on the effects of structure. The refinements consisted of an organizational structure and a problem which were more complex and more representative of industrial organizations. Another objective was to investigate and compare the performance of groups organized under a highly restricted (tight) structure against groups organized under loose (loose-written and loose-oral) structures. The evidence indicates that different structures will initially have different effects on groups exposed to the same problem. Eventually, however, all groups, regardless of structure will reach a level of performance that is approximately the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of this paper is on factors that influence how well prepared an organization will be for succession in its top positions. Data are drawn from cases of imminent or completed succession in over one hundred small manufacturing companies. In these companies the main factors influencing succession planning and subsequent profitability appear to be the availability and competence of a family member as successor. Their influence appears to operate mainly through their effects on the timing of the succession-planning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger study of executive succession and its consequences. Taking origin of successor as a variable, some propositions are developed and tested about succession of chief executives. These deal with conditions of employment, salary, rule making, staff expansion and replacement, attitudes toward mobility, tenure, and patterns of succession. The data demonstrate that school superintendents promoted from within and those brought in from outside relate to their organizations in different ways with different organizational consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based upon questionnaire data from nurses working in out-patient departments, deals with interaction within and across hierarchical lines. The chief findings are: (1) The extent of the respondents' self-initiation is inversely related to the status of the other party (0), provided that peers are omitted. The level of self-initiation with peers closely approximates that with subordinates. (2) O's status, is related to the content of the interaction such that the transmission of organizational material is maximized with superordinates; interpersonal content goes more to peers than to others, while task content is minimized with subordinates. The latter finding is questioned in the discussion, in which some general hypotheses are suggested. (3) Frequency of contact is inversely related to O's status. (4) The importance and satisfaction with interactions are positively related to O's status. Explanations of the data are explored and related to previous research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from an exploratory, longitudinal study of the effects of a change-over to electronic data-processing equipment in a light and power company. As a case study it deals with (1) the general problems of introducing this change, which extended over five years and affected more than sixteen hundred employees in two organizational divisions, and (2) the effects of such a change on organizational structure, policies and philosophy, job structure, and personnel at all levels of the company. Some of the more unique problems of transition to a high degree of automation in the office are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on organization-wide management of conflict as distinguished from local settlement of conflict. It is suggested that conflict generated by administrative allocations is rooted in technology and is controlled by organization structuring. Latent-role conflict, stemming from the labor force, is controlled by recruitment and selection procedures. Conflict occasioned by competing pressures on members, based on the nature of the task environment, is controlled by organizational posture. The author advances a number of propositions and draws on research findings to illustrate that various types of organizations have different vulnerabilities and defenses against these three sources of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This and a companion paper to appear in the next issue attempt to outline an approach to the analysis of formal organizations in terms of the general theory of social systems. An organization is defined as a social system oriented to the attainment of a relatively specific type of goal, which contributes to a major function of a more comprehensive system, usually the society. Such an organization is analyzed in terms of an institutionalized value system, above all defining and legitimizing its goal, and of the mechanisms by which it is articulated with the rest of the society in which it operates. There are three primary contexts of this articulation: (1) procurement of the necessary resources, financing, personal services, and "organization" in the economic sense; (2) the operative code centering on decisions which are classified as policy decisions, allocative decisions, and coordinating decisions; and (3) the institutional structure which integrates the organization with others, centering on contract, authority, and the institutionalization of universalistic rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence suggests that there is no best way to organize--that organization must be tailor-made for the firm. This paper provides an integrated, comprehensive framework for understanding how varying types of organization may be appropriate to specific combinations of forces in the internal and external environments of an organizational entity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A strategy is specified for creating a management innovation capability which is similar to the R and D effort for new products/processes. The proposed capability is designed to overcome the barriers to management innovation which have limited efforts to increase management competence by professional staffs. A program for continuous management progress implemented by a management innovation function strategically located in the organization structure is described in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that many of the difficulties in reconciling findings in studies of organizational structure may be attributed to the failure of empirical measures to distinguish between specialized (semi-skilled) and specialist (professional) workers. The concept of role variety, derived from information theory and designed to take account of the varying degrees of interchangeability of personnel at a particular level, is used to develop a coefficient of specialization. This is a purely structural measure which incorporates the gradients of expertise that have conventionally been dealt with in terms of personal as distinct from task specialization. The discriminatory power of this measure is then compared with that of two other indices. Some of the theoretical implications of the concept, particularly with regard to the contingency theory of organizations are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organization theorists have faced many difficulties in conceptualizing organizational goals and understanding organizational behavior through them. This paper suggests that commitment to a goal paradigm has retarded analysis by requiring the disassociation of conceptual scheme from incompatible empirical findings on organizations. Barnard's incentive system analysis is seen as providing the foundations of a counter paradigm, and suggestions are made for its development along the lines indicated by his statement "the individual is the basic strategic factor in organization." Organizations are not viewed as analytically distinctive social units given meaning by their goals, but as arbitrary focuses of interest, marketplaces whose structures and processes are the outcomes of the complex accommodations made by actors exchanging a variety of incentives and pursuing a diversity of goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning in Nepal has little to do with anything that happens in that country. Planned targets are not met. Planned expenditures are not made. This paper explores the reasons-insufficient information, few and poor project proposals, inability to program foreign aid, opposition of the finance ministry, and severely limited capacity to administer development-given for the failure of planning. Special attention is paid to the tortuous release of funds and the effort to overcome basic political and administrative factors through surface changes in the form of organization for planning. The author argues that planning cannot create the preconditions for its own success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores faculty interchanges among 79 graduate schools of business as a form of interorganizational relation. Faculty interchange among schools, the dependent variable, is operationalized in terms of 5 measures, and 11 structural variables are identified as the independent variables. Cluster analysis of a faculty interchange matrix yields six supply and six receipt clusters which are analyzed with the aid of the independent variables. Inbreeding is positively correlated with the tendency toward top-heaviness in faculty rank structure; and 4 other measures of faculty interchange-number of faculty members supplied, number of faculty members supplied as well as received, number of schools interacted with, and number of schools with reciprocal faculty interchanges-are highly correlated with faculty size, growth in faculty size, school prestige, and output of Ph.D.'s. The finding that faculty recruitment tends to be guided by structural similarity rather than by structural complementarity, raises some questions about the functionality of current recruitment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]