Organizational Design

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

1. Who Governs?

• Governance and Organizational Choice
• A View of Organizations
  • Where's Rationality?
  • Two Examples
  • A Model of Organizational Choice
• Determinants of Social Power
  • Formal Authority
  • Control Over Resources
  • Information and Access
  • Uncertainty Reduction
• Assessing Power in Social Structures
• What is Organizational Design?

2. Managing Interdependence

• Task and Role Specialization
• Vertical Differentiation
• Horizontal Differentiation
• Managing Interdependence by Rules
• Centralization
  • The Paradox of Decentralized Centralization
• Recruitment and Socialization
• Leadership As Interdependence Management

3. Information Systems

• Information Technology and Centralization
• Information Technology and Differentiation
• Evaluations and Rewards
  • Criteria for Evaluation
• Information Systems and Power
  • Information Control As a Strategy for Obtaining Power
• Secrecy and the Distribution of Information
• Summary

4. Technology

• Dimensions and Definitions
  • Dimensions
• The Choice of Technology
• The Structural Consequences of Technological Choice
• Technology and External Control
• Technological Change

5. The Organizational Environment

• Organizational Survival and Growth
  • Requirements for Survival
• Resource Interdependence and the Control of Organizations
  • Control of Organizations
  • Social Control of Organizations
  • Power of Internal Subunits
• Interdependence and Structure
• The Effects of Competition
• Uncertainty, the Environment, and Structure

6. Designing the Environment to Fit the Organization

• Managing Competition
  • Regulation to Reduce Competition
• Managing Symbiotic Interdependence
• Managing Uncertainty
• Organizational Legitimation
• The Organization As a Political Actor
• Internal Influence and External Relationships

7. Change

• The Conventional View of Structural Change
• Pressures for Stability
• Demands for Change
• The Contest
• An Example
• Legitimating the Contest for Governance
• Planned Change
• Summary

8. A Case Study: The Organizational Design of A University

• The Question of Governance
• The Bases of Influence
• The Effect of the Environment on Governance
  • Interdependence
• Information Systems, Evaluation and Control
  • Controlling Behavior Through Reporting Requirements
• Technologies
• Structures
• Applicability of the Example for Other Organizations

9. Organizational Design As A Political Process

• The Case of Consumer Affairs Departments
• Organizational Design As Cooptation - The Case of Participative Management
  • Cooptation
• Structures as Compromise
• Conclusions

Name Index

Subject Index