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Summary Organizations in Action (Thompson)
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Summary Organizations in Action:Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory by Thompson. Contains chapter 1 t/m 6, incl. lecture notes.
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Summary Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative TheoryPart 1
Chapter 1 Strategies for Studying Organizations
What we know or think we know about complex organizations is housed in a variety of fields or
disciplines. Although each of the several schools has its unique terminology, Gouldner was able to
discern two fundamental models underlying most of the literature:
1. Rational models: results from a closed system strategy for studying organizations.
2. Natural system models: flows from an open system strategy.
1.1 Closed system strategy
1.1.1 The search for certainty
If we wish to predict accurately the state a system will be in presently, it helps immensely to be
dealing with a determinate system. Ashby observes, fixing the present circumstances of a
determinate system will determine the state it moves to next, and since such a system cannot go to
two states at once, the transformation will be unique. Fixing the present circumstances requires that
the system be closed or, if closure is not complete, that the outside forces acting on it be predictable.
Bartlett’s research suggest that there are strong human tendencies to reduce various forms of
knowledge to the closed-system variety, to rid them of all ultimate uncertainty.
1.1.2 Three schools in caricature
Three schools are:
1. Scientific management (Taylor): focused primarily on manufacturing or similar production
activities. Clearly employs economic efficiency as its ultimate criterion. Seeks to maximize
efficiency by planning procedures according to a technical logic, setting standards, and exercising
controls to ensure conformity with standards and thereby with the technical logic. Closure is
accomplished by:
a. Assuming that goals are known
b. Tasks are repetitive
c. Output of the production process somehow disappears
d. Resources in uniform qualities are available
2. Administrative-management (Gulick and Urwick): focuses on structural relationships among
production, personnel, supply, etc. Employs economic efficiency as the ultimate criterion. Here
efficiency is maximized by specializing tasks and grouping them into departments, fixing
responsibility according to such principles as span of control or delegation, and controlling action
to plans. Closure is accomplished by:
a. Assuming that ultimately a master plan is known, against which specialization,
departmentalization, and control are determined
b. A, C, D see scientific management.
3. Bureaucracy (Weber): focusing on staffing and structure as means of handling clients and
disposing of cases. Again the ultimate criterion is efficiency, and this time it is maximized by
defining offices according to jurisdiction and place in a hierarchy, appointing experts to offices,
establishing rules for categories of activity, categorizing cases or clients, and then motivating
proper performance of expert officials by providing salaries and patterns for career
advancement. Weber saw three holes through which empirical reality might penetrate the logic:
a. Policymakers could alter the goals but the implications of this are set aside.
b. Human components (the expert officeholders) divorcing the individual's private life from
his life as an officeholder through the use of rules, salary, and career.
c. Outsiders (clientele) but nullifies their effects by depersonalizing and categorizing clients.
It seems clear that the rational-model approach uses a closed-system strategy. Moreover, efficiency
is important in the schools mentioned. A closed system of logic and conceptually closes the
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,organization to coincide with that type of logic, for this elimination of uncertainty is the way to
achieve determinateness. This model is very functional.
1.2 Open system strategy
1.2.1 Thee expectation of uncertainty
We assume that a system contains more variables than we can comprehend at one time, or in other
words the system is determinate by nature. Approached as a natural system, the complex
organization is a set of interdependent parts which together make up a whole because each
contributes something and receives something from the whole, which in turn is interdependent with
some larger environment.
Central to the natural-system approach is the concept of homeostasis, or self-stabilization, which
spontaneously, or naturally, governs the necessary relationships among parts and activities and
thereby keeps the system viable in the face of disturbances stemming from the environment
1.2.2 Two examples in caricature
Two schools:
1. Informal organization: attention is focused on variables which are not included in any of the
rational models, such as sentiments, social controls via informal norms, status, etc.
2. Global less crystallized under a label (this school has no name): this school views the organization
as a unit in interaction with its environment. This stream of work leads to the conclusion that
organizations are not autonomous entities.
It’s clear that this research area focuses on variables not subject to complete control by the
organization and hence not contained within a closed system of logic.
1.3 Choice or compromise
The logics associated with each appear to be incompatible, for one avoids uncertainty (closed
system) to achieve determinateness, while the other assumes uncertainty and indeterminateness
(open system). It appears that each approach leads to some truth, but neither alone affords an
adequate understanding of complex organizations. Gouldner calls for a synthesis of the two models,
but does not provide the synthetic model.
1.4 A newer tradition
What emerges from the Simon-March-Cyert stream of study is the organization as a problem-facing
and problem-solving phenomenon. In this view, the organization has limited capacity to gather and
process information or to predict consequences of alternatives. To deal with situations of such great
complexity, the organization must develop processes for searching and learning, as well as for
deciding. The complexity, if fully faced, would overwhelm the organization, hence it must set limits
to its definitions of situations; it must make decisions in bounded rationality. This requirement
involves replacing the maximum-efficiency criterion with one of satisfactory accomplishment. The
assumptions touches both:
Open system: assumptions are consistent with the open-system strategy, for it holds that the
processes going on within the organization are significantly affected by the complexity of the
organization's environment.
Closed system: touches on matters important in the closed-system strategy: performance and
deliberate decisions.
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, 1.4.1 The cutting Edge of Uncertainty
The two different systems have different purposes:
Open-system: attempting to understand organizations per se.
Closed-system: interested in organizations mainly as vehicles for rational achievements.
So this reflects something fundamental about the cultures surrounding complex organizations. We
don’t think about half closed or half rational organizations. One alternative, then, is the closed-
system approach of ignoring uncertainty to see rationality; another is to ignore rational action in
order to see spontaneous processes. The newer tradition with its focus on organizational coping with
uncertainty is indeed a major advance. For purposes of this volume we will conceive of complex
organizations as open systems, hence indeterminate and faced with uncertainty, but at the same
time as subject to criteria of rationality and hence needing determinateness and certainty!!!
1.5 The location of problems
The phenomena associated with open- and closed-system strategies are not randomly distributed
through complex organizations, but instead tend to be specialized by location. Three distinct levels of
responsibility and control:
1. Technical: every formal organization contains a suborganization whose "problems" are focused
around effective performance of the technical function. The conduct of classes by teachers, the
processing of income tax returns and the handling of recalcitrants by the bureau, the processing
of material and supervision of these operations in the case of physical production.
2. Managerial: services the technical suborganization by:
a. Mediating between the technical suborganization and those who use its products: the
customers, pupils, and so on.
b. Procuring the resources necessary for carrying out the technical functions.
The managerial level controls, or administers, the technical suborganization by deciding such
matters as the broad technical task which is to be performed, the scale of operations,
employment and purchasing policy, and so on.
3. Institutional: wider social system which is the source of the "meaning," legitimation, or higher-
level support which makes the implementation of the organization's goals possible.
If the closed-system aspects of organizations are seen most clearly at the technical level, and the
open-system qualities appear most vividly at the institutional level, it would suggest that a significant
function of the managerial level is to mediate between the two extremes and the emphases they
exhibit. If the organization must approach certainty at the technical level to satisfy its rationality
criteria, but must remain flexible and adaptive to satisfy environmental requirements, we might
expect the managerial level to mediate between them, ironing out some irregularities stemming
from external sources, but also pressing the technical core for modifications as conditions alter.
1.6 Recapitulation
Most of our beliefs about complex organizations follow from one or the other of two distinct
strategies. Some conclusions:
The closed-system strategy: seeks certainty by incorporating only those variables positively
associated with goal achievement and subjecting them to a monolithic control network.
The open-system strategy: shifts attention from goal achievement to survival, and incorporates
uncertainty by recognizing organizational interdependence with environment.
A newer tradition: enables us to conceive of the organization as an open system, indeterminate
and faced with uncertainty, but subject to criteria of rationality and hence needing certainty.
The central problem for complex organizations is one of coping with uncertainty. Articulation of
these specialized parts becomes significant. We also suggest that technologies and environments are
major sources of uncertainty for organizations, and that differences in those dimensions will result in
differences in organizations.
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