General Organisational Theory? LO20307

Joseph Voros (jvoros@ozemail.com.au)
Tue, 5 Jan 1999 16:16:22 +1100

Hi all.

I have been musing over the following thought:

Is there a General Theory of Organisations?

By this I mean, is there a (sub-) discipline of Organisational Theory
which is concerned with generic features of organisations and how, when
these are altered, particular forms of organisation result?

I have in mind here a sort of "super duper" form of study -- not
individual organisations, but rather a general, generic, template of
organisational characteristics, parameters, functions, etc etc *from
which* are constructed classes of organisation, arising from the
particular way in which these segments are put together.

For example, two characteristics might be communication and control
(amongst many others). With central comm and central control, you get a
pyramid-style organisational structure (and many other different
features). With central comm and distributed control, you get a different
structure, and so on.

I'm interested in what work has been done to study the meta-structure of
organisations -- that is, possible forms of organisations.

Can anyone recommend a book, or point to a resource, where this has been
done?

Thanks,

-- 

Joseph Voros

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>