Carolina QuotesThe concept of organizational goals, like the concepts of power, authority, or leadership, has been unusually resistant to precise, unambiguous definition. Yet a definition of goals is necessary and unavoidable in organizational analysis. Organizations are established to do something; they perform work directed toward some end.
Charles Perrow Connected to the Carolinas
Source
p. 133
- work
- Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970
- year
- 1970
- locator
- p. 133
Cite this record
“The concept of organizational goals, like the concepts of po…” Charles Perrow. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-79CDB16C23. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/79cdb16c23
More from Charles Perrow
I once believed that if organizations had a better fit between their technology and their structure, they would be more efficient and thus more profitable.
Two aspects of this work process are of critical importance.
Techniques are performed upon raw materials. The state of art of analyzing the characteristics of the raw materials is likely to determine what kind of technology will be used. (Tools are also necessary, of course, but by and large, the construction of tools is a simpler problem than the analysis of the nature of the material and generally follows the analysis.) To understand the nature of the material means to be able to control it better and achieve predictability and efficiency in transformation. We are not referring here to the 'essence of the material, only the way the organization perceives it to be ... The other relevant characteristic of the raw material, besides the understandability of Its nature, is Its stability and variability; that is, whether the material can be treated in a standardized fashion or whether continual adjustment to it is necessary. Organizations uniformly seek to standardize their raw material In order to minimize exceptional situations. This is the point of de-individualizing processes found in military academies, monasteries and prisons, and the superiority of the synthetic shoe material Corfam over leather.