“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.”

Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 4

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Jay R. Galbraith 9
American business theorist 1939–2014

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“[Task uncertainty is] the difference between the amount of information required to perform the task and the amount of information already possessed by the organisation.”

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

Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 5

“[Integration is defined as] the process of achieving unity of effort among the various subsystems in the accomplishment of the organization's task.”

Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) American business theorist

Variant: [Integration is defined as] the process of achieving unity of effort among the various subsystems in the accomplishment of the organization's task.
Source: Organization and environment: Managing differentiation and integration, 1967, p. 4

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“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)

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“Organizational design often focuses on structural alternatives such as matrix, decentralization, and divisionalization. However, control variables (e. g., reward structures, task characteristics, and information systems) offer a more flexible approach. The purpose of this paper is to explore these control variables for organizational design. This is accomplished by integration and testing of two perspectives, organization theory and economics, notably agency theory. The resulting hypotheses link task characteristics, information systems, and business uncertainty to behavior vs. outcome based control strategy. These hypothesized linkages are examined empirically in a field study of the compensation practices for retail salespeople in 54 stores. The findings are that task programmability is strongly related to the choice of compensation package. The amount of behavioral measurement, the cost of measuring outcomes, and the uncertainty of the business also affect compensation. The findings have management implications for the design of compensation and reward packages, performance evaluation systems, and control systems, in general. Such systems should explicitly consider the task, the information system in place to measure performance, and the riskiness of the business. More programmed tasks require behavior based controls while less programmed tasks require more elaborate information systems or outcome based controls.”

Kathleen M. Eisenhardt American economist

Source: "Control: Organizational and economic approaches," 1985, p. 134; Article abstract

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