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The cognitive orientation of the decision makers of an organization toward their task environment agents has recently emerged as an important variable in organization research. Operating primarily in the context of non-profit health and welfare organizations, scholars such as Etzioni, Perrow, Levine and White, and Lefton and Rosengren [4; 14. pp. 650-677; 9; 8, pp. 802-810] have looked at the organization's attitude toward its various clients as a key variable. Lefton and Rosengren, for example, proposed that the degree of an organization's longitudinal (long-term) and lateral (in-depth) concern for its clients tends to influence the structuring of the organization's activities, [8, pp. 802-810]. Focusing primarily on profit-oriented organizations a number of researchers, such as Dill, Thompson, Negandhi and Prasad; Negandhi and Reimann, and Reimann, Boseman, and Simonetti [3, pp. 409-413; 18; 11, pp. 24; 12; 15, pp. 25-38] have investigated the management policy available. For example, based on their study of 30 manufacturing firms operating in India, Negandhi and Reimann found a strong relationship between management philosophy (score of concern) and the degree of decentralization of decision-making, [12] The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences that exist in management policy in American (U.S.) subsidiaries operating in Italy and in domestic Italian firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many words have been written to try to explain the span of control, of management, or of knowledge, and to define the size of span for general situations. A principle has been proposed by NICB, "There is a limit to the number of positions that can be coordinated by a single executive." Recently there have been several models developed to determine the proper span. At the same time, each school of management thought appears to advocate a different approach to the resolution of the problem of determining the proper span. The purpose of this paper is to present through a simulation model some new dimensions of the problem. Hopefully, future use of this model will provide information for the sutdy of other aspects of organization theory. Recently, Carzo and Yanouzas applied queuing theory to determine the span of control. They based their analysis on the random need of each supordinate for the services of his superior and the rate at which the superior could perform these services. They arrived at an optimum span for a certain set of conditions by balancing the cost of the subordinate's waiting against the cost of the manager. This approach considered two variables and provided a useful model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Top Soviet leaders are becoming increasingly cognizant of the fact that the key obstacle to the attainment of their internal and external objectives is the mismanagement of the nation's growing productive resources.[1] In the attempt to devise a viable management system, the rulers have experimented with a large number of measures. The study of these experiments provides significant insight into the managerial process, and has important implications to everyone interested in management. Soviet leaders confirm that effective management is the critical factor which will determine the outcome of competition with the West, and ultimately the destiny of the nations involved.[2] The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature and the consequences of Soviet industrial management experiments. Because of space limitation, we must confine our report to a summary of the major problems, measures to correct the problems, and consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports the author's opinions regarding the unionization of business teachers. She suggests that unionization affects the business students as well at their professors. Possible reasons for faculty to unionize, including job security, decreased college enrolment and gains in income, are discussed. The negative effects of unionization are also examined.

This paper re-examines empirical literature which relates computerization to organization structure. Explanations are sought for the conflicting findings regarding the effects of computer adoption on centralization and decentralization. A review of the literature suggests that: (1) computers do not cause changes in the degree of delegation, (2) computerized systems are sufficiently flexible to facilitate either centralized or decentralized structures, and (3) the degree of delegation in these studies is related to task environmental conditions of the organizations studied. Certain conceptual issues pertaining to this line of research are discussed, including the meaning of centralization, the perceptual bias in interviewing affected managers, the lack of adequate effectiveness measures in most studies, and the very basic problem of treating computerization as a variable. Further research on computerization should focus away from the present confining framework to look at environmental conditions as the more likely cause of structural variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what situations and to what sources does decentralization of decision-making occur within departments of a complex organization? This paper answers this question by: (1) identifying four alternative sources of decision-making within organizations (hierarchical, colleagial, functional, and personal decision-making); and (2) empirically examining the situational conditions in which the 4 alternative sources are used to make task-related decisions in 318 work units of a large state employment-security agency. Based upon the literature, the situational factors examined in this research are task uncertainty, task interdependence, and unit size. The research results largely support the hypotheses that, as task uncertainty and work-flow interdependence between unit members increases, hierarchical decision-making decreases, while personal, colleagial, and functional decision-making increase. While the influence of unit size relative to task uncertainty and interdependence is negligible, what is significant is that the exact opposite direction of the above relationships with the four decision-making sources was found to exist for size. These findings suggest that future studies should not only test for differences in the degree of influence of task uncertainty, interdependence, and size on decision-making sources, but should also explore the differences in kinds of influences of each situational factor on the source of decision-making that is exercised within organizational work units. Finally, an assessment was made of the explanatory power of the three situational factors in the use of each decision-making source. It was found that task uncertainty and interdependence, without unit size, explain as much of the variation in the dependent variables as they do with unit size. In other words, unit size was found to make no practical contribution to explaining the use of the decision-making sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies on group problem-solving have shown that centrality of a subject's position influences: (1) his sense of being a part of the group, (2) the amount of information available to him, and (3) his importance in the process of locomotion and progress toward group goals. These are aspects of member participation. These findings, however, have not been tested or validated in complex, multi-level or hierarchical structures. The present study used two-level laboratory decision conferences, incorporating either centralized or decentralized decision structures to investigate the resulting attitudinal consequences of these conferences for the participants relative to their satisfaction, performance, position, and participation in the group decision process. The focus of the study concerned the resulting attitudes and satisfactions of group leaders, based on their participation across hierarchical levels within the bi-level experimental organizations. It was found that lower level participation resulted in significantly higher satisfactions for leaders from centralized group structures than were experienced by leaders from decentralized group structures. However, satisfactions of leaders that result from their upper level participation were negatively related to their antecedent group histories, contrary to predictions. Issues related to these and other findings are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this study is organizational alienation. Unlike job satisfaction, alienation provides the necessary link between the study of the quality of organizational life and the quality of life at large. In this study, two forms of alienation are investigated: powerlessness and self-estrangement. Measures used included: Pearlin's (1962) scale of powerlessness, Seeman's (1967) scale of self-estrangement, Aiken and Hage's (1966) indices of centralization and formalization, and Litwin and Stringer's (1968) scale of organizational climate. Ss were 227 bank employees at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. The results support the notion that bureaucratization is related to alienation: centralization is significantly correlated to both powerlessness and self-estrangement, while formalization is only related to self-estrangement, but not powerlessness, thereby reducing the intrinsic value of the job. Also, some dimensions of organizational climate, especially those dealing with lack of acceptance in the organization, are related to both powerlessness and self-estrangement. The implications of these results are indeed significant, considering the fact that centralization and formalization are inherent dimensions of modern bureaucratic organizations (Hall, 1968). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses some current concepts in organization theory. The selected topics for discussion include concepts relating to the span of control, decentralization, organization planning units, and control theory. The author advocates a greater integration of human relations concepts with present organization theory. Some business enterprises are presented as examples of the effective integration of applicable conceptual aspects of control theory. A reappraisal of decentralization in management is also considered.

The purpose of this study is to propose and to research the existence of some relationships between the strategic variables and some of the administrative variables of a firm. In particular, the study examines the relationships between the product-market diversity and the degree of organizational bureaucracy and the degree of decentralized decision-making in 22 firms in the meat and machine tool industries. Two hypotheses are proposed and tested: 1. The greater a firm's product-market diversity, the less bureaucratic its organization is. 2. The greater a firm's product-market diversity, the more decentralized its decision- making is The study explains a possible rationale for the relationships and presents an experimental design permitting the variables to be isolated while controlling for size, environmental factors, and production technology. Questionnaires and interviews with the top management of the firms were used to measure the research variables. The results tend to substantiate the hypotheses relating diversity and bureaucracy and to provide statistically significant evidence that increased diversity leads to more decentralized decision-making even if a firm's size remains the same. Some related findings are presented that indicate firm size has no effect on the degree of organizational bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]