Culture, Management & Manufacturing Organization: A Study of British and German Firms.

The theoretical thrust of this study is the controversy about constraints on organization structures and conversely the extent of choice this is closely linked with arguments about how organizations ought to be studied and with clashes between opposed theoretical approaches. The aim of this paper is therefore to compare British organization structures with German ones, to offer an explanation for existing national differences of organization structure and to seek guidelines for the further development of organization theory and research. The overall design of the study had been taken over from the French research partners, who concentrated on the two former countries. This analysis was extended to cover British firms by the present writers. The present paper will principally concentrate on the British-German comparison. The German organization is more apt to remain squat, grows little laterally and therefore develops less of a superstructure on top of the works. This superstructure however is more likely to be a hierarchical one than in Britain, although it is more often little formalized and more personalized, which coincides with its relatively smaller size.