“I consider all large organizations troublesome, including governmental and nonprofit organizations. They concentrate power in the hands of their top management; the larger the organization, the greater the power being concentrated. There are degrees of concentration of course, and some large organizations are so disorganized that they lose much of their potential power. But size is generally correlated with these kinds of power: By deciding where to locate they determine economic opportunities for some communities and deny it to others. Their hiring decisions affect the life chances of people, and can, unless checked, favor religious, ethnic, racial, and political affiliations. As consumers of resources, they can favor certain producers over others, and not necessarily on the grounds of “efficiency.””
They can mobilize political resources to insure favored treatment better than small organizations.
Charles Perrow, in: " Organizational Efficiency vs. Power: An Email Interview with Professor Charles Perrow http://blogs.gonomad.com/blog/2005/10/organizational-efficiency-vs-power-charles-perrow.html." blogs.gonomad.com, Oct. 2005.
1980s and later
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Charles Perrow 71
American sociologist 1925–2019Related quotes

Source: The Modern Corporation and Private Property. 1932/1967, p. 357 (1967, p. 313)
Gerald R. Salancik, and Jeffrey Pfeffer. "The bases and use of power in organizational decision making: The case of a university." Administrative Science Quarterly (1974): 453-473; p. 454; Abstract.
“To the degree that organized labor is strong, the power of owners is decreased.”
Property (1935)
Context: National unions embracing a considerable portion of the workers in a given industry are able to exert terrific power in the determination of the relative levels of wages, dividends and interest. To the degree that organized labor is strong, the power of owners is decreased.

Address to the Senate (22 January 1917)
1910s
Context: The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.
Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 10 ; As cited in: François L'Italien, BÉHÉMOTH CAPITAL. Contribution à une théorie dialectique de la financiarisation de la grande corporation. Université Laval, 2012. p. 147 (Many of the following quotes came from this source)
“The power structure will generally dictate the operative goals of the organization.”
Charles Perrow (1963). "Goals and Power Structures: A Historical Case Study." In: E. Friedson, (Ed.), The Hospital in Modern Society. New York: The Free Press, p. 114
1960s

Leninism or Marxism? (1904)

“Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.”
Education (1902)
Context: He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act.
He who dreams not creates not.
For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall.
The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage.
And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret.
A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.
Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth.
Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality.
Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.
Thus would I shape character.
Thus would I make good citizens.
And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action.
“Organization theory…has been altogether too accommodating to organizations and their power.”
Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. iii