A study of 19 manufacturing organizations revealed structural differences between relatively high and low performing organizations. Cluster analyses of the correlations among eleven measures of structure isolated three relatively independent dimensions of (a) decentralization, (b) specialization, and (c) formalization among the ten high performing firms, but failed to produce any such independent dimensions among the low performing firms.

A new instrument for measuring the beliefs, attitudes, or values held by the management of a firm with respect to its various publics is used in a field study of managers in 19 firms. This instrument is effective in differentiating between the management teams in different kinds of business organizations.

Two contrasting models, factory and service, are developed from general systems theory and used to describe the college production process. Issues explored in terms of the models are: open admission, research, facility location, training versus education, instructional methods, academic freedom, instructor evaluation, and the college's responsibility in placement.

The article looks at the findings of a study examining the extent to which relative performance of organization subunits on a set of quantitative measures of performance is in agreement with judgments of relative performance made at higher levels in the organization. The author discusses the adoption of goal setting programs within organizations to establish performance criteria for achievement levels. The study asked headquarters managers in two functional departments of a telephone company to rank field units from their respective function according to their relative overall performance. For the field engineering units, some combination of a few variables were found that related linearly to performance judgments.

The article presents a study conducted in 1970 among firms regarding the extent of use of operations research (OR) techniques in corporate planning. A questionnaire was sent out to the companies li...

Variances in employee and physician attitudes toward the desirability of merger are analyzed, controlling for age, length of service, trust in management, satisfaction with premerger conditions, anticipated benefits from merger, and degree of involvement in preliminary discussion about merger. Implications of the findings for effective management of merger implementation processes are discussed.

Distortion of upward communication by subordinates is viewed as instrumental for attainment of need-goals. The study investigates relationships between distortion of upward communication, needs of subordinates, and aspects of organizational climate. Distortion of upward communication is negatively related to level of security and positively related to achievement needs; also positively related to a ?heteronomous? organizational climate and negatively related to an ?autonomous? climate.

General System(s) Theory (GST) has failed to deliver because of its own basic assumptions. Hierarchy compels us to impersonalize all social interaction, thus making it impossible to realize ourselves. Concreteness overemphasizes the single organization and determinism as well. Competition returns us to the mechanistic tradition GST initially sought to escape. Finally, GST remains tied to ?laws? of growth which promise only our destruction. American Indians knew better.

Systems theorists maintain that the traditional analytic methods of science are inadequate when a system composed of interrelated parts is being investigated. This paper argues, on the contrary, that it is the central methodological principle of systems theory that is impossible to apply.

This paper is a discussion of the external or side effects of business and rational responses to these external effects for profit-maximizing firms.1 Some people would argue that the rational response for the profit-maximizing firm is to do nothing about its external effects until required by law; whereas others, as we in this paper, argue that the rational response for the profit-maximizing firm is to take some action. The first section of the paper deals with the meaning of externalities, of which pollution is a fundamental type, and the phases of a solution to such problems. In the second section, the paper deals with rational responses for the profit-maximizing firm regarding its externalities, in which many aspects of the popular arguments against the rationality and the practicability of independent corrective action by a firm are examined.