Knowledge that Transforms

P revious research indicates that effective operating systems adopt structural patterns appropriate to their environmental uncertainty. Production units have typically been found to require more structure than comparable research organizations. The current findings document a consistent mismatch between the relative structural levels desired by research and production managers and the structural levels currently recommended for their respective functions. Implications regarding this conflict between organizational efficiency and employee attitudes are presented.

A Three-Dimensional contingency‘theory’of organizational behaviour was used to predict job satisfaction and performance in a sample of registered representatives of a national securities firm. Contingency variables composed of individual life style orientation, perceived work group structure and perceived job complexity did not predict a significant amount of variance in the dependent measures. Cautions concerning the assumed universal superiority of contingency predictors over simpler formulations are discussed.