Howard E. Aldrich quote: “Organizations are goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity systems.”

“Organizations are (1) social entities that (2) are goal-directed, (3) are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and (4) are linked to the external environment.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: Organization Theory and Design, 2007-2010, p. 10; Cited in: Jan A. P. Hoogervorst (2009), Enterprise Governance and Enterprise Engineering, p. 80.

“Organizational forms — specific configurations of goals, boundaries, and activities — are the elements selected by environmental criteria, and change may occur either through new forms eliminating old ones or through the modification of existing forms. Environmental niches are distinct in combination of resources and other constraints that are sufficient to support organizational form. Organizational forms, then, are organized activity systems oriented toward exploiting the resources within a niche.
Selection pressures may favour or eliminate entire groups of organizations, such as industries, and the changing population distribution of organizations in a society reflects the operation of such selection pressures.”

Howard E. Aldrich (1943) American sociologist

Source: Organizations and Environments, 1979, p. 28

“Several features or attributes of organizations can therefore be recognized
# Organizations are social institutions (entities) composed of sets of persons with established patterns of interaction.
# Organizations develop to achieve specific goals. Therefore, organizations are social creations that require order and cooperation.
# Organizations are social instruments possessing relatively identifiable boundaries and existing on a relatively permanent basis. While this final point is perhaps less clear than were those that precede it, the identification of fixed boundaries (for instance, the distinction between members and nonmembers) and continuity (that is, existence and identity over time) provide a conceptual framework for the study of organizational activity.”

Arthur G. Bedeian (1946) American business theorist

Source: Organizations: Theory and Analysis, 1984, p. 3-4 (1984: 2-3)

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

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

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

“There has to be a constant flow of energy to maintain the organization of the system and to ensure its survival. Equilibrium is another word for death.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. 4; as cited in Richard Andrews et al. (2012, p. 129)

“For the goal planner, reality stops at the boundaries of the problem. For the objective- planner, it stops at the boundaries set by feasibility and to some extent by responsibility. For the ideal-planner, there are no "real" boundaries.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (1979), p. 106

“Management as an activity has always existed to make people’s desires through organized effort. Management facilitates the efforts of people in organized groups and arises when people seek to cooperate to achieve goals.”

Daniel A. Wren (1932) American business theorist

Source: The evolution of management thought, 1972, p. 11-12 (in 1972 edition)

“Management as an activity has always existed to make people’s desires through organized effort. Management facilitates the efforts of people in organized groups and arises when people seek to cooperate to achieve goals.”

Arthur G. Bedeian (1946) American business theorist

Daniel A. Wren & Arthur G. Bedeian (1972: 11-12); as cited in: Le Texier, Thibault. "The first systematized uses of the term “management” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." Journal of Management History 19.2 (2013): 189-224.

“Primary work systems. These are the systems which carry out the set of' activities involved in an identifiable and bounded subsystem of a whole organization - such as a line department or a service unit…”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

“Today, organizations are competing in complex environments so that an accurate understanding of their goals and the methods for attaining those goals is vital. The Balanced Scorecard translates an organization’s mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides the framework for a strategic measurement and management system.”

David P. Norton (1941) American business theorist, business executive and management consultant

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 2

“Organizations are goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity systems.”

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