Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 4
“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.”
Source: Organization design: An information processing view, 1977, p. 21
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Jay R. Galbraith 9
American business theorist 1939–2014Related quotes
Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 5
Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 75

“Men… performed better when they understood why they were being asked to carry out a task.”
Source: The Invaders

“A greater history opens before my eyes,
A greater task awaits me.”
Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo;
Majus opus moveo.
Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo;
Majus opus moveo.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VII, Lines 44–45 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald)

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“If you're the bearer of the knife, you have a task that's greater than you can imagine.”
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss
Context: If you're the bearer of the knife, you have a task that's greater than you can imagine. A child... How could they let it happen? Well, so it must be.... There is a war coming, boy. The greatest war there ever was. Something like it happened before, and this time the right side must win. We've had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It's time we started again, but properly this time...."
He stopped to take in several rattling breaths.
"The knife," he went on after a minute. "They never knew what they were making, those old philosophers. They invented a device that could split open the very smallest particles of matter, and they used it to steal candy. They had no idea that they'd made the one weapon in all the universes that could defeat the tyrant. The Authority. God. The rebel angels fell because they didn't have anything like the knife; but now..."
"I didn't want it! I don't want it now!" Will cried. "If you want it, you can have it! I hate it, and I hate what it does — "
"Too late. You haven't any choice: you're the bearer. It's picked you out. And, what's more, they know you've got it; and if you don't use it against them, they'll tear it from your hands and use it against the rest of us, forever and ever."