“I once believed that if organizations had a better fit between their technology and their structure, they would be more efficient and thus more profitable.”

—  Charles Perrow

Source: 1970s, "Three Types of Effectiveness Studies," 1977, p. 97

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I once believed that if organizations had a better fit between their technology and their structure, they would be more…" by Charles Perrow?
Charles Perrow photo
Charles Perrow71
American sociologist 1925–2019

Related quotes

Wanda Orlikowski photo

“This paper develops a new theoretical model with which to examine the interaction between technology and organizations. Early research studies assumed technology to be an objective, external force that would have deterministic impacts on organizational properties such as structure. Later researchers focused on the human aspect of technology, seeing it as the outcome of strategic choice and social action. This paper suggests that either view is incomplete, and proposes a reconceptualization of technology that takes both perspectives into account. A theoretical model-- the structurational model of technology--is built on the basis of this new conceptualization, and its workings explored through discussion of a field study of information technology. The paper suggests that the reformulation of the technology concept and the structurational model of technology allow a deeper and more dialectical understanding of the interaction between technology and organizations. This understanding provides insight into the limits and opportunities of human choice, technology development and use, and organizational design. Implications for future research of the new concept of technology and structurational model of technology are discussed.”

Wanda Orlikowski American computer scientist

Source: "The duality of technology" 1992, p. 389; Abstract

“Critics of structural contingency theory sometimes argue that it is not sensible for organizations to move into fit with their contingencies, because while the organization is changing its structure to fit the contingencies, the contingencies themselves change, so that the organizational structural change does not produce fit. Nevertheless, by moving towards the fit, the organization is decreasing misfit, and thereby increasing its performance relative to what it would be if it were to make no structural change.”

Lex Donaldson (1947) British-Australian organizational sociologist

Source: The contingency theory of organizations, 2001, p. 23.

Bruce Lee photo

“Linda and I aren't one and one. We are two halves that make a whole -- two halves fitted together are more efficient than either half would ever be alone!”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Aldous Huxley photo

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in Adonis and the Alphabet (1956); later in Collected Essays (1959), p. 293
Source: Ends and Means

Philip Warren Anderson photo

“Surely there are more levels of organization between human ethology and DNA than there are between DNA and quantum electrodynamics, and each level can require a whole new conceptual structure.”

Philip Warren Anderson (1923) American physicist

Source: More Is Different (1972), p. 396

Thomas Sowell photo

“To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more to produce if they were produced by enterprises operating without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2003-12-26-0312241220-story.html, South Florida Sun Sentinel, December 26, 2003 <br class="br">2000s

Herbert A. Simon photo

“First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical [economic] theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their employees to work toward organizational goals. There is no reason, a priori, why it should be easier (or harder) to produce this motivation in organizations aimed at maximizing profits than in organizations with different goals. If it is true in an organizational economy that organizations motivated by profits will be more efficient than other organizations, additional postulates will have to be introduced to account for it.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Simon (1991) "Organizations and Markets:" in: Journal of Economic Perspectives. 5 (2 Spring 1991): p. 28.
1980s and later

Emil M. Cioran photo

“A great step forward was made the day men understood that in order to torment one another more efficiently they would have to gather together, to organize themselves into a society”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Satoru Iwata photo

“Although many believe that technology automatically enables more realistic expression, I believe that is just not correct.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Profile: Satoru Iwata, 2007-03-03, IGN, p. 3 http://cube.ign.com/articles/530/530986p3.html,

Robert Hunter (author) photo

“Profit, rent, and interest would be no more.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 74-75
Context: Associated production would be rendered impossible. Profit, rent, and interest would be no more. There would be no diversified division of labor. Cities and industrial communities would dwindle and disappear. Society as a whole would return... to the actual poverty of an agricultural and handicraft age. A community of Indians in America before the invasion of the whites had as much social organization as Tolstoy seems to have felt necessary for mankind. "The Anarchists are right in everything..." he writes, except "only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution." The entire world would be broken into atoms—each an individualist standing alone.

Related topics