“Product of complex interactions within and between the organization’s social structure, leadership groups and environment. … They are never static but subject to continual pressure and changes over time.”

—  Charles Perrow

Source: 1960s, Authority, Goals and Prestige in a General Hospital, 1960, p. 2

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 "Product of complex interactions within and between the organization’s social structure, leadership groups and environme…" by Charles Perrow?
Charles Perrow photo
Charles Perrow 71
American sociologist 1925–2019

Related quotes

“As open systems, organizations faced an environment that might be placid and benevolent, or turbulent and harsh. Economic, social, political, and technological changes could come rapidly or slowly, and some organizational arrangements might be better able to cope with the changing environment than others. Could it be that there was no one way to structure an organization that design was influenced by environmental factors and could vary, depending on technology?
Joan Woodward (1916–1971) took this contingency view, classified organizations by the complexity of the technology used in producing goods, and found that it influenced an organization’s structure. Her classification, ranging from less complex (1) to more advanced (3), consisted of (1) unit and small-batch production systems that produced made-to-order and customized products to meet consumers’ needs; (2) large-batch and mass production, which involved a fairly standardized or uniform product with but few variations in its final appearance; and (3) long-run continuous-process production, which involved a standard product manufactured by moving through a predictable series of steps.”

Daniel A. Wren (1932) American business theorist

Source: The evolution of management thought, 1972, p. 462-3 (in 2009 edition)

William Foote Whyte photo

“Each member of the corner gang has his own position in the gang structure. Although the positions may remain unchanged over long periods of time, they should not be conceived in static terms. To have a position means that the individual has a customary way of interacting with other members of the group. When the pattern of interactions changes, the positions change. The positions of the members are interdependent, and one position cannot change without causing some adjustments in the other positions. Since the group is organized around the men with the top positions, some of the men with low standing may change positions or drop out without upsetting the balance of the group. For example, when Lou Danaro and Fred Mackey stopped participating in the activities of the Nortons, those activities continued to be organized in much the same manner as before, but when Doc and Danny dropped out, the Nortons disintegrated…”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Source: Street Corner Society, 1943, pp. 255-63, as cited in: Mercer (1958, p. 39)

Neale Donald Walsch photo

“The genetic expression within any given cell at any given time is not “fixed,” as many people think it is. It is not a static thing. Rather, it is continually adapting to both external and internal stimuli – meaning that it adjusts to the environment and to any changes in the surroundings, as well as to any changes within the body itself.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer
Immanuel Wallerstein photo

“And in the present we are all irremediably the products of our background, our training, our personality and social role, and the structured pressures within which we operate.”

Immanuel Wallerstein (1930–2019) economic historian

Wallerstein (1974) The modern world system capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world economy in the sixteenth century. New York: Academic Press.

Bertrand Russell photo

“Competition for power is of two sorts: between organizations, and between individuals for leadership within an organization.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), p. 165

“Relationships are never static. They have to evolve over time as the individuals in them change.”

Sherryl Woods (1944) American writer

Source: Driftwood Cottage

“With the changes in technological complexity, especially in information technology, the leadership task has changed. Leadership in a networked organization is a fundamentally different thing from leadership in a traditional hierarchy.”

Edgar H. Schein (1928) Psychologist

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 12-13

“Inertial pressures prevent most organizations from radically changing strategies and structures.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Source: Organizational ecology, 1989, p. 22

“The forms of social organization produced the market, not the reverse… Instead of markets calling forth efficient forms of social organization, political and social interactions produced the structuring of sociologically effective markets.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 300

Robert K. Merton photo

“By social structure is meant that organized set of social relationships in which members of the society or group are variously implicated.”

Robert K. Merton book Social Theory and Social Structure

Source: Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), p. 162 (1957 edition)

Related topics