“The greater the task uncertainty, the greater the amount of information that must be processed among decision makers during task execution in order to achieve a given level of performance.”

—  Jay R. Galbraith

Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 4

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Jay R. Galbraith photo
Jay R. Galbraith9
American business theorist 1939–2014

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“The basic proposition is that the greater the uncertainty of the task, the greater the amount of information that has to be processed between decision-makers during the execution of the task. If the task is well understood prior to performing it much of the activity can be preplanned. If it is n~t understood, then during the actual task execution more knowledge is acquired which leads to changes in resource allocations, schedules, and priorities.”

Jay R. Galbraith (1939–2014) American business theorist

Source: Organization design: An information processing view, 1977, p. 21

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Jay R. Galbraith (1939–2014) American business theorist

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“In large-scale organizations, the factual approach must be constantly nurtured by high-level executives. The more layers of authority through which facts must pass before they reach the decision maker, the greater the danger that they will be suppressed, modified, or softened, so as not to displease the "brass". For this reason, high-level executives must keep reaching for facts or soon they won't know what is going on. Unless they make visible efforts to seek and act on facts, major problems will not be brought to their attention, the quality of their decisions will decline, and the business will gradually get out of touch with its environment.”

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