“Organizations may try to change constantly; but, after a certain point in the structuration of an organizational field, the aggregate effect of individual change is to lessen the extent of diversity within the field.”

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 148

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Paul DiMaggio 12
American sociologist 1951

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“By organizational field, we mean those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 148

“Contingency theory states that there is no single organizational structure that is highly effective for all organizations.”

Lex Donaldson (1947) British-Australian organizational sociologist

Lex Donaldson, "The normal science of structural contingency theory." Studying Organizations: Theory and Method. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage (1999): 51-70.
Context: Within organization studies, contingency theory has provided a coherent paradigm for the analysis of the structure of organizations. The paradigm has constituted a framework in which research progressed leading to the construction of a scientific body of knowledge... Contingency theory states that there is no single organizational structure that is highly effective for all organizations. It sees the structure that is optimal as varying according to certain factors such as organizational strategy or size. Thus the optimal structure is contingent upon these factors which are termed the contingency factors. For example, a small-sized organization, one that has few employees, is optimally structured by a centralized structure in which decision-making authority is concentrated at the top of the hierarchy, whereas a large organization, one that has many employees, is optimally structured by a decentralized structure in which decision-making authority is dispersed down to lower levels of the hierarchy.

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“Organizational change is a set of behavioral science-based theories, values, strategies, and techniques aimed at the planned change of the organizational work setting for the purpose of enhancing individual development and improving organizational performance, through the alteration of organizational members' on-the-job behaviors.”

Jerry I. Porras (1938) American writer

Jerry I. Porras and Peter J. Robertson (1992). "Organisational development: Theory, practice and research", in: M. Dunnette, L. Hough (Eds), Consulting Psychologist Press, Palo Alto, p. 723

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