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such data would ba a revised concept of what organizations are. if the
fabricated measures in figure 1 approximate realoty, this wouldo be more a
revolution than a revision, for the fabricated measures imply that one should
stop thinking of organizations as distinguishable subsets of society, and start
thinking of them as hills in a geography of human activities )Pock, 1972). Social
groups and networks would appear as islands and continents (Crozier,1972;Hoiberg & Cloyd, 1971; Levine, 1972).
Since there are many activity dimensions, one must choose the dimensions he
wishes to map--just as geographers musrchoose wheter to map altitudes,
climates, population densities, or transport networks--and the shapes of
organizational hills will shift as functions of the dimensions mapped. On the
basis of figure 1, a map os psychological job investment would show a set of
interteaus separated form each other by swallow valleys, and separated from
the general population of organizations by deep valleys; a map of response
speed would show each organization eas a steep spire rising form an
undulating plian. in either case, some people conventionally classified asorganization members would be undifferentiated from de population at large,
and other people would be difficult to assign to a specific organization.
This view of organization is hardly new. it is latent in many texts on
organizations, social psychology, social anthropology, and industrial structure
(e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1966, pp. 30-70), and the maps one could draw are kindred
to the organizations chart and the sociogram. However, no one has yet
collected the data needed to convert a general orientation into a perceptual
frame of reference, and when someone docs, the topography of organization
theory itself should be tranformed.
At present, virtually all organizational research implicity or explicity assumes
organizations can be sharply distinguished from their enviroments. A given
person or phenomenon is inside or outside, or relevant or irrelevant. This
practice is analogous to trying to develop a physics of gases on the basis of a
dichotomy like breathable-un-breathable, wich scrambles togheter and ignores
fine gradations in temperature, pressure, and chemical composition. The
dichotomy makes such strong monotonicity assumptions and discard so much
onformation that it is nearly valueless, and yet its acceptability as a
measurement standard blocks systematic observations otf temperature,
pressure, and composition. Such simple and useful relations as Boyle´s ansAvogadro´s Laws may indefinitely remain undiscovered.
Domains, roles, and territories
Studies or organization-environment relations are also complicated by the
ambiguous, relativistic character of organizational environments (Barker, 1968;
Weick, 1969). To no small degree, an organization´s environment is an
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arbitrary invention of the organization itself. The organization selects the
environments it will inhabit, and the it subjectively defines the environments it
has selected.
ENVIRONMENTAL SELECTION .Taking into account the multiudinous dimensions
along which environments can vary and the many values each dimension canassume, an organization has potential access to a vast number of
environments. And since the organization occupies just a few of these
locations, it effectively selects some alternatives from the complete set. At
least, that is an abstract conceptualization: the actual selection processes are
neither explicit, thoughtful, nor orderly.
Many environments are excluded from consideration by constraints which the
organization imposes unreflectively or unconsciously, through assumptions and
values tht are inherent in the organization´s decisio-making procedures (Buck,
1966; Starbuck &Dutton, 1973). One reason why criteria are implicit, rather
than explicit, is that the organizations in its social reference group. Since thetendency is to imitate choices tather than rules for choosing, the organization
is not forced to consider what the rules are; and even if the rules themselves
have been imtated, there is no contrast with what neighboring organizations do
to make the organization consider why it does what it does. Anther reason for
criteria being implicit is that selection processes are activated incrementally
(Mintz-erg, 1972; Normann,1972). An organization only examines its
environmental choices because external pressures, such as the actions of
competing organizations, raise doubts about the viability of its present
environmet (Hedberg,1973,1974; Terreberry, 1968); and the organization only
reevaluates those environmental segments which are under attack. Selection
criteria supporting the unthreatened environments remain implicit, even
though they may be logically inconsistent whit criteria being ecplicitly applied
in the threatened domains.
On the whole, the nature of implicit selection criteria is less strongly
determined by an organization itself than by its neighbors--the surrounding
system of organizations which Evan (1966) called the organization-set.
Mambers of the organization-set provide the examples for imitation (Chandler,
1962; Richman & Copen, 1972; Starbuck & Dutton, 1973; Stinchcombe, 1965).
They make the attackswhich instigate environmental reassessments, and then
they constrain yhe directions incremental revisions can take (Clarck, 1965;levine &White, 1961; Maniha & Perrow, 1965; Thompson & McEwen, 1958;
Weick, 1969). They set prices, costs, and transmit managerial traditions. Since
implicit criteria filter our nearly all environmental alternatives and leave only a
small number for explicit consideration (Cyert et al., 1956), an organization´s
ultimate environmental selections are strongly affected by the properties of its
which specific organizations occupy appropiate environments are partilly
controlled by organizational social systems as wholes (Levine & White, 1961;
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Hirsch, 1972).
Once a set of environmental alternatives has benn explicitly identified, the
organization must select some to inhabit. But organizations´choices among
explicit alternatives are none too systematic (COhen et al., 1972; Cyert et al.,
1956; Normann, 1971). Some environmental alternatives possess specialprominence because they p´redate the choice question and even the
organization, or because they are accompanied by unusually large amounts of
information. Other alternatives are judged promising or unpromising on the
basis of a priori theories that owe as much to folklore and myth as to analysis
and evidence. Alternatives which are actualy explored tend to be evaluated
with whatever data can be easily and quickly acquired. Some alternatives are
rejected because of initial impressions that would not be substantiated by
investigation, and others become final contenders on equally superficial
grounds. Not infreuently, the evaluation data are provided by other
organizations which are advocating the selection of particular alternatives--
potential customers or suppliers, communities seeking industrial employers,and so on.
Of course, noise and disorder in the selection process degrade the association
between organizational and environmental properties. Even if an organization
would attempt to assess its idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses and to
choose environments which matched and complemented hem, it would likely
end up inhabiting environments whise properties were only loosely correlated
with its idiosyncracies. But in addition, nearly all organizations find it im-