Organizational Structure and Technology: A Computer Model Approach

The explanation of organizational structure has always been an important issue to administrative theorists. This paper investigates the structure of manufacturing operations and therefore starts from the premise that technological factors are most crucial. One current approach to structure and technology, comparative analysis, has studied the overall context but at a highly aggregative level. The “constituent” approach, on the other hand, has investigated intraorganizational relationships but at the expense of empirically verifiable theory. We develop a heuristic computer model capable of testing existing constituent theories. The model uses work flow data as technological inputs and produces a structural configuration as output. It employs administrative rules (based on Thompson's propositions for structuring the technical core) to convert inputs into outputs. The inputs, outputs, and rules are formally represented using list processing concepts. Operationalizing the formal concepts has been satisfactorily explored in a pilot study of a small manufacturing firm. Testing existing constituent theory is just the initial phase of this project. It is possible to develop new structural theory for the technical core and the rest of the organization, and to engage in a form of comparative analysis to judge the effects of varying contexts. Moreover, the fact that a structural configuration is produced implies utility in the area of design.