Charles Perrow: Goal

“[People-processing institutions are] a type of social institution in which human beings constitute both the raw materials and the products of organizational work. Although all social institutions are involved in some degree in people-processing activities, the term is properly restricted to those whose primary goal is the shaping, reshaping, removing, overhauling, retooling, reassembling, and recording the physical, psychological, social, legal, or moral aspects of human objects.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, Organization for treatment, 1966, p. 163; as cited in: David Shichor (2005), The Meaning and Nature of Punishment. p. 107

People

“Another discipline began to intrude upon the confident work and increasingly elaborate models of the human relations theorists (largely social psychologists) and the uneasy toying with bureaucracy of the "structionalists" (largely sociologists). Both tended to study economic organizations. A few, like Philip Selznick, were noting conflict and differences in goals (perhaps because he was studying a public agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority), but most ignored conflict or treated it as a pathological manifestation of breakdowns in communication or the ego trips of unreconstructed managers.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1970s, "The short and glorious history of organizational theory", 1973, p. 7

Confidence , Communication , Study

“Multiple leadership, as a stable system of goal determination and policy setting, is most likely to be found in organizations where there are multiple goals and where these goals lack precise criteria of achievement and allow considerable tolerances with regard to achievement. Organizations with a single goal [i. e., proprietary hospitals] or a clear hierarchy of goals provide little basis for multiple leadership. Multiple leadership arises because important group interests diverge, and each group has the power to protect its interests.”

Charles Perrow

Charles Perrow (1963). "Goals and Power Structures: A Historical Case Study." In: E. Friedson, (Ed.), The Hospital in Modern Society. New York: The Free Press, p. 132
1960s

“Some of these by-products [of official goals] may become so important to the participants who make up the institution as to constitute unofficial goals. “I would not be interested in this hospital unless it…” did something or other. “The trouble with this place is everyone is so concerned with” this or that pursuit. Where these blanks are not filled in with good patient care, teaching and research we have unofficial goals of some group or individual, and thus we have uses to which the institution is put other than the avowed ones.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, Authority, Goals and Prestige in a General Hospital, 1960, p. 15. (Emphasis in the original by Jones (2013)).

“The operative goals will be shaped by the dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task area that is most critical, their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based upon their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own needs.”

Charles Perrow

Variant: The dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task that is most critical (to the organization), their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based on their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own ends.
Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 857

Training

“Chapter Five deals with the messiest problem of all— but the one to which all analytical roads should lead : the nature of organizational goals and the strategies used to achieve them.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. xi: Preface

Nature , Problem

“Where and how will official goals be subverted?”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, Authority, Goals and Prestige in a General Hospital, 1960, p. 23

“Most studies of the internal operation of complex organizations, if they mention goals at all, have taken official statements of goals at face value. This may be justified if only a limited problem is being investigated, but even then it contributes to the view that goals are not problematical. In this view, goals have no effect upon activities other than in the grossest terms; or it can be taken for granted that the only problem is to adjust means to given and stable ends. This reflects a distinctive "model" of organizational behavior, which Gouldner has characterized as the rational model. Its proponents see the managerial elite as using rational and logical means to pursue clear and discrete ends set forth in official statements of goals, while the worker is seen as governed by non-rationalistic, traditionalistic orientations.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 854.

Behavior , Problem , Study

“It [a power based model of organization] sees organizations a intentional human constructions but not necessarily rational systems guided by official goals; as bargaining areas rather than cooperative systems; as systems of power rather than coercive institutions reflecting cultural norms, and as resources for other organizations and groups rather than closed systems. If we define organizations, then, as intentional human constructions wherein people and groups within and without the organization compete for outputs of interest them under conditions of unequal power, we have posed the issue of effectiveness quite differently”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1970s, "Three Types of Effectiveness Studies," 1977, p. 101 ; As cited in: Diehl-Taylor (1997)

People

“Since organizations are established to do something, to perform work directed to some end, all organizations have goals – some implied, some explicit.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. 133

“Unambiguous pursuit of official goals is not likely to be common.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, Authority, Goals and Prestige in a General Hospital, 1960, p. 21

“Operative goals designate the ends sought through the actual operating policies of the organization; they tell us what the organization actually is trying to do, regardless of what the official goals say are the aims.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 855

“This article [entitled A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations], was one of three independent statements in 1967 of what came to be called "contingency theory." It held that the structure of an organization depends upon (is ‘contingent’ upon) the kind of task performed, rather than upon some universal principles that apply to all organizations. The notion was in the wind at the time.
I think we were all convinced we had a breakthrough, and in some respects we did — there was no one best way of organizing; bureaucracy was efficient for some tasks and inefficient for others; top managers tried to organize departments (research, production) in the same way when they should have different structures; organizational comparisons of goals, output, morale, growth, etc., should control for types of technologies; and so on. While my formulation grew out of fieldwork, my subsequent research offered only modest support for it. I learned that managers had other ends to maximize than efficient production and they sometimes sacrificed efficiency for political and personal ends.”

Charles Perrow

Charles Perrow, in "This Week’s Citation Classic." in: CC, Nr. 14. April 6, 1981 (online at garfield.library.upenn.edu)
Comment:
The other two 1967 publications were Paul R. Lawrence & Jay W. Lorsch. Organization and environment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967, and James D. Thompson. Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
1980s and later

Way , Support , Thinking , Learning

“In a modern society, where large organizations have acquired unprecedented importance, social scientists have increasingly sought to understand the nature of organizational goals - what they are, what shapes or determines them, what their impact is upon the environment, and how they change.”

Charles Perrow

Perrow (1968), "Organizational goals," in: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: The Macmillan Co. p. 305
1960s

Understanding , Nature , Change

“Official goals are the general purposes of the organization as put forth in the charter, annual reports, public statements… Official goals are purposely vague and general and do not indicate two major factors which influence organizational behavior: the host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving official goals, and the priority of multiple goals and the many unofficial goals pursued by groups within the organization.”

Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 855

Way , Behavior , Decision

“The 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

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 133

“The less the expertise, the more direct the surveillance, and the more obtrusive the controls. The more the expertise, the more unobtrusive the controls. The best situation of all, though they do not come cheap, is to hire professionals, for someone else has socialized them and even unobtrusive controls are hardly needed. The professional, the prima donna of organizational theory, is really the ultimate eunuch - capable of doing everything well in that harem except that which he should not do, and in this case that is to mess around with the goals of the organization, or the assumptions that determine to what ends he will use his professional skills.”

Charles Perrow

Charles Perrow, "Is business really changing?." Organizational Dynamics 3.1 (1974): 31-44.
1970s

“The power structure will generally dictate the operative goals of the organization.”

Charles Perrow

Charles Perrow (1963). "Goals and Power Structures: A Historical Case Study." In: E. Friedson, (Ed.), The Hospital in Modern Society. New York: The Free Press, p. 114
1960s