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That Word "Organization"

Author(s): L. F. Urwick
Source: The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 1976), pp. 89-92
Published by: Academy of Management
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Conceptual
N otes
That Word
"Organization"
LT. COL. L. F.
URWICK,
O.B.E., M.C., M.A., F.A.A.M.
Longueville,
Aus tralia
Few s erious s tudents of
management
would
deny
the
propos ition
that
"organization"
is a
'key'
term. In the las t is s ue of the
Academy
of
Management
Journal for
1974,
37.5
percent
of the
"offerings "
us ed this term in their titles . In 17
pages
of
advertis ing
in the s ame is s ue it recurred
19 times in the titles of new books about man-
agement.
In the French
language,
which has no
exact
equivalent
for the
Englis h
term
"manage-
ment" the
phras e
Scientific
Management
its elf
is trans lated "I
'Organization Scientifique
du
Travail". This
means , literally
"the s cientific or-
ganization
of
work", not,
it will be
noted,
"the
s cientific
organization
of
people".
It is therefore
of s ome
moment,
if
management
s tudies are ever
to claim a reas onable title to the term "s cienti-
fic",
that this term
"organization"
s hould be
us ed
precis ely.
At
pres ent
it is us ed
very loos ely.
It is a harlot of
management
communication.
Why
is this ?
Why
do otherwis e
res pectable
s tudents of
management
become s o dis s olute
when
they
us e this word? For a
very s imple
rea-
s on. In the
Englis h-s peaking countries ,
and
per-
haps particularly
in the
U.S.A.,
the term
"organi-
zation" has two
popular meanings
or
us ages .
And
thes e are
incompatible.
What are
they?
Firs t there is the
meaning
or
us age
in which
this term was
employed by
the s o-called "clas s i-
Received
2/17/75; Accepted 5/14/75.
cis ts " of
management.
Henri
Fayol (1841-1925),
for
ins tance, analyzed
the overall
proces s
of
managing
into five
as pects
or
functions , namely
to forecas t and to
plan,
to
organize,
to command
or to
direct,
to coordinate and to control (2).
Profes s or Luther
Gulick,
a member of The
Pres ident's Committee on Adminis trative Man-
agement
-
1936, adopted
a s even-fold
analys is .
He divided
Fayol's
"to command or to direct"
into
Staffing
and
Directing
and his "to control"
into
Reporting
and
Budgeting
(3).
There have been
many
s imilar
analys es vary-
ing
from two or three to a dozen different func-
tions . There is
nothing
final or s acros anct about
any
of them.
They
are
merely
different
ways
of
analyzing
the overall
proces s
of
managing
into
component
or
s ub-proces s es
for
purpos e
of in-
ves tigation
and dis cus s ion. It
is , however,
of
s ome moment that earlier s tudents of
manage-
ment s hould not be
criticized,
becaus e their crit-
ics are
us ing
identical
terms ,
but with
meanings
totally
different from thos e
contemplated by
the
earlier writers .
There is a s econd
us age
of the term
"organ-
ization" which is
very general, particularly
in the
United
States ,
but als o in Great Britain. That is as
a
s ynonym
for the
corporation
or
undertaking,
the human
group regarded
as a whole. That
thes e two us es of the s ame term are
incompat-
89
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Conceptual
N otes
ible is obvious . If a writer refers to "the
organi-
zation of the General Motors
Corporation",
he
is
writing
about the s tructure of
pos itions
or
pos ts
into which all the activities
neces s ary
to the
well-being
of a
great corporation
are s ubdivided.
The
purpos e
of s uch s ubdivis ion is to create a
s eries of tas ks within the
competence
of the
available
individuals ,
or tas ks for which
they
can
be
trained,
and to relate thos e tas ks to each
other and to the overall
objectives
of the
corpo-
ration s o that
they s upport
each other. It
is ,
in
s hort,
to ens ure coordination of effort.
The reas on
why
men
organize
is
always
the
s ame: to ens ure that individual efforts are di-
rected towards a common
purpos e
and that
they
s upport
each other. The latter is
largely
a
ques -
tion of
timing,
the
timing
of individual efforts .
Every
form of human
collaboration,
from two
per-
s ons to 200
million,
is like an orches tra. It
only
works
really
well if the individual
players "keep
time",
s o that their efforts
s upport
each other
and are in accord with "the s core". If a
s ingle
player (ins trumentalis t) fails to
"keep time",
the
whole effect
may
be ruined. That is
why
orches -
tras have "conductors " and bus ines s undertak-
ings
have
managers .
But in an orches tra all the
players
can s ee
and hear the conductor. In a bus ines s undertak-
ing they
cannot. The conductor (Chief Executive)
may
live in an office ten thous and miles
away.
Concerted action (after all a mus ical
perform-
ance is called "a concert") then
depends upon
communication. That is what
organization
is
about. A s o-called
"Organization
Chart" is a wir-
ing diagram.
It defines who s hould tell whom
about what
and,
if
anybody
does n't
know, whom
he/s he s hould as k. Without
orderly
communica-
tion
any
effort at human
cooperation
tends to be-
come a
"dis orderly
hous e".
But in the
Englis h-s peaking countries ,
and
particularly
in the United States of
America,
the
terms "an
organization, organization, organiza-
tional" are als o us ed
very widely
in an alternative
meaning.
This is as a
generalized
title for
any
form of human
grouping
viewed as a whole. Thus
men
s peak
and write of The General Motors
Corporation
as "the
organization"
or "an
organ-
ization" and of a s eries of human
groups
as "or-
ganizations ".
This s econd
us age is ,
of
cours e,
a
colloquial-
is m,
a form of
popular s peech.
As s uch it has no
legitimate place
in s cientific dis cours e. But it has
been us ed
freely
to criticize the work of the
"clas s icis ts " of
management
who were
us ing
the
s ame term
"organization"
in the much narrower
meaning already
des cribed.
For
ins tance, Profes s ors
James G. March and
Herbert Simon
publis hed
in 1958 a book which
they
called
flatly Organizations (5),
thus
us ing
the
term in its wider connotation. In their
opening
paragraph they
refus e to define the term which
forms their title. But from the
examples
which
they
cite of
"organizations ",
from "the corner
grocery
s tore" to "the N ew York State
govern-
ment" it is obvious that
they
are
us ing
the term
in its wider
meaning
of
any
form of human
group
(5).
What is the
objection
to the us e of the term
"organization"
in this overall or
popular
mean-
ing? Simply
that it is s o wide that it cannot be de-
fined
clearly
and it is therefore us eles s for
pur-
pos es
of s cientific dis cours e.
Eighty-three pages
later
on, however,
thes e writers do
attempt
def-
inition.
They write,
"An
organization
is a
s ys tem
of interrelated s ocial behaviors of a number of
pers ons
whom we s hall call the
participants
in
the
organization". They
des cribe this as the "Bar-
nard-Simon
theory
of
organizational equili-
brium"
(5, p. 84). This is a
ques tion-begging
def-
inition. In
us ing
the term "a
s ys tem"
thes e
writers as s ume that the behavior of "the
partici-
pants "
will be
s ys tematic.
But individual human
behavior
is ,
with notorious
frequency, egois tic,
erratic and
unpredicatable.
The whole
problem
is : How do we influence thes e
egocentric
be-
haviors s o that
they
become
s ys tematic?
.How do
we ins ure that
they
contribute
effectively
to a
common
purpos e
rather to the individual im-
puls es
of the
participants ?
And the ans wer is :
"By organizing
them". The definition is
tautolog-
ical.
By us ing
the words "a
s ys tem"
it as s umes the
very
condition that it s ets out to define.
90
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Academy
of
Management
Review -
January
1976
The
difficulty
aris es from the fact that the
terms "an
organization, organizations , organiza-
tional,"
us ed of
s ys tems
of human
cooperation
regarded
as
wholes ,
are s o wide and
generalized
as to be
us eles s ,
for
purpos es
of s cientific dis -
cours e. The writer is s econd to none in his ad-
miration of the work of the late Ches ter Barnard.
But on this
problem
of
defining
"an
organiza-
tion",
Barnard's definition reads : "A formal or-
ganization
is a
s ys tem
of
cons cious ly
coordi-
nated activities or forces of two or more
per-
s ons "
(1, p. 73). It won't do. If this definition is
taken as
written,
"boy
kis s es
girl"
becomes an
example
of a "formal
organization"
within its
terms . And this is
certainly
not what Barnard
meant when he defined the term.
Why
have s tudents become s o confus ed
over this term
"organization"?
For a
quite
s im-
ple
reas on. Since the s econd decade of this cen-
tury
a number of s ciences or
"dis ciplines "
bear-
ing
on human behavior have claimed to contrib-
ute to human
knowledge
about
managing.
Firs t, during
the 1914-1918 World War individual
ps ychology
and
ps ychiatry
s taked a claim to ad-
vis e
governments
as to whether individuals were
or were not
incapacitated
for
military
s ervice ow-
ing
to mental or
phys ical
dis turbances of various
kinds . In
particular they
dealt with what was
known
popularly
at the time as "s hell s hock"
cas es , or,
in les s direct official
language
as "bat-
tle
fatigue".
The Britis h
private s oldier,
who has a
trick of
finding
his own terms for new branches
of
learning
which he does not
unders tand,
and
therefore does not
completely trus t,
us ed to refer
to thes e
ps ychiatris ts
as "the trick
cyclis ts ".
Somewhat
later, largely
as the res ult of the
work of the late Profes s or Elton
Mayo
and the
Hawthorne
Experiments (1927-1932), dis ciplines
concerned with human s ocial
behavior,
s uch as
s ociology,
claimed the
right
to
pronounce
on
management
is s ues . But thes e
"dis ciplines "
were even les s mature in their
terminology
than
was individual
ps ychology.
The
cons equence
has
been almos t unfathomable confus ion over the
meaning
of
terms ,
a confus ion in which ambiva-
lence in
us ing
the word
"organization"
has
played
a
cons picuous part.
N or is the reas on for s o much debate and
mutual
mis unders tanding
difficult to
identify.
By
far the mos t
dis tinguis hed
s cientific au-
thority
known to the writer
pers onally
was the
late Profes s or
J.
B. S. Haldane
(1892-1966),
the
bio-chemis t. He was
deeply
interes ted in
political
and s ocial
problems .
As ked
why, given
this
per-
s onal
"concern",
he had chos en
biochemis try
as
his field of
s pecial s tudy; why
not
ps ychology?,
he
replied: "Becaus e,
with all
res pect
to
ps ycho-
logis ts ,
I do not think
ps ychology
is
yet
a s ci-
ence."
He bas ed this
opinion
on the time it had
taken
metallurgis ts
to know more about metals
compared
to the time it took the s killed crafts -
man and
biologis ts
to
begin
to be of s ome us e to
the
practical
animal breeder.
Ps ychology
is about as much more
complex
than
biology
as
biology
than
phys ics (4, p.
184).
Mechanics became a s cience when
phys icis ts
had decided what
they
meant
by
s uch words
as
weight, velocity
and
force, but not till then.
The
ps ychologis ts
are s till
trying
to arrive at a
s atis factory terminology
for the
s imples t
phenomena
that
they
have to deal with. Until
they
are clearer as to the exact
meaning
of
the words
they
us e
they
can
hardly begin
to
record events on s cientific lines
(4, p. 185).
That,
it is
true,
was written almos t half-a-cen-
tury ago.
But Haldane's es timate of the time it
would take
ps ychologis ts
to know more about
individual behavior than the s killed
politician
was a
couple
of centuries . "Let us
hope",
he
added,
"that it is too
large" (4, p.
184).
If Haldane was
right
about
ps ychology,
as
the s cience
dealing
with individual
behavior,
how much more
likely
was he to have been
right
about
s ociology, s ociometry, political
s cience
and the other
dis ciplines dealing
with the be-
havior of individual human
beings
in
groups ?
Such
"dis ciplines "
are far more
likely
to be dis -
torted
by political
influences and
prejudices .
They
deal with the
very
s tuff of
politics
-
the
s entiments and
opinions
of human
beings
in
groups .
There is
every temptation
for immature
"dis ciplines " concerned with s ocial behavior to
91
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Conceptual
N otes
Conceptual
N otes
us e words as
bludgeons
or beatitudes rather than
as ins truments of exact communication.
The
terminology
of the s o-called "behavior
s ciences "
is ,
as
yet,
far from
behaving
s cientifi-
cally,
i.e. from
being
exact. This
imprecis ion
tends to
"s pill
over" into the dis cus s ion of man-
agement.
The ambivalence
already
noted in us -
ing
the term
"organization"
is a fruitful s ource of
confus ion and
conflict,
not about the
facts ,
but
merely
about the labels us ed to indicate the facts .
us e words as
bludgeons
or beatitudes rather than
as ins truments of exact communication.
The
terminology
of the s o-called "behavior
s ciences "
is ,
as
yet,
far from
behaving
s cientifi-
cally,
i.e. from
being
exact. This
imprecis ion
tends to
"s pill
over" into the dis cus s ion of man-
agement.
The ambivalence
already
noted in us -
ing
the term
"organization"
is a fruitful s ource of
confus ion and
conflict,
not about the
facts ,
but
merely
about the labels us ed to indicate the facts .
Is it not time that
management
had a termi-
nology
of its
own,
free from the s emantic imma-
turities of
many
of the
underlying "dis ciplines "?
Indeed is not
"dis cipline"
its elf too
flattering
a
title for bodies of
knowledge
whos e
terminology
is s till uns tandardized and in
dis array?
In the
s tudy
of and
writing
about
management its elf,
ambivalence in
us ing
the term
"organization"
has led to
incalculable,
and
quite unneces s ary,
conflict and confus ion.
Is it not time that
management
had a termi-
nology
of its
own,
free from the s emantic imma-
turities of
many
of the
underlying "dis ciplines "?
Indeed is not
"dis cipline"
its elf too
flattering
a
title for bodies of
knowledge
whos e
terminology
is s till uns tandardized and in
dis array?
In the
s tudy
of and
writing
about
management its elf,
ambivalence in
us ing
the term
"organization"
has led to
incalculable,
and
quite unneces s ary,
conflict and confus ion.
REFEREN CES REFEREN CES
1. Barnard, Ches ter I. The Functions of the Executive (Cam-
bridge,
Mas s .: Harvard
Univers ity Pres s , 1936).
2.
Fayol,
Henri. General and Indus trial
Management.
Trans -
lated
by
Cons tance Storrs (London: Pitman, 1949).
3. Gulick, Luther. "N otes on the
Theory
of
Organization,"
in L. Gulick and L. Urwick
(Eds .), Papers
on the Science of
1. Barnard, Ches ter I. The Functions of the Executive (Cam-
bridge,
Mas s .: Harvard
Univers ity Pres s , 1936).
2.
Fayol,
Henri. General and Indus trial
Management.
Trans -
lated
by
Cons tance Storrs (London: Pitman, 1949).
3. Gulick, Luther. "N otes on the
Theory
of
Organization,"
in L. Gulick and L. Urwick
(Eds .), Papers
on the Science of
Adminis tration (N ew York: Columbia
Univers ity Pres s ,
1936).
4.
Haldane, J. B. S. "Science and
Politics ,"
in Pos s ible Worlds
and Other
Es s ays (London: Chatto &
Windus , 1928).
5.
March, James G. and Herbert A. Simon.
Organizations
(N ew York: John Wiley
&
Sons , 1958).
Adminis tration (N ew York: Columbia
Univers ity Pres s ,
1936).
4.
Haldane, J. B. S. "Science and
Politics ,"
in Pos s ible Worlds
and Other
Es s ays (London: Chatto &
Windus , 1928).
5.
March, James G. and Herbert A. Simon.
Organizations
(N ew York: John Wiley
&
Sons , 1958).
One
Sociologis t's Reply
to Wieland's Review
Es s ay
WILLIAM
JAMES
HAGA
N aval
Pos tgraduate
School
George
Wieland's
s urvey
of organization s ociology texts repres ents a
fundamental mis unders tanding
of the es s ential nature of s ociology
that
dis tinguis hes
it from other academic dis ciplines and ps ychology in
particular.
Wieland's confus ion
probably repres ents the management
field's
thinking
about
organization s ociology.
One
Sociologis t's Reply
to Wieland's Review
Es s ay
WILLIAM
JAMES
HAGA
N aval
Pos tgraduate
School
George
Wieland's
s urvey
of organization s ociology texts repres ents a
fundamental mis unders tanding
of the es s ential nature of s ociology
that
dis tinguis hes
it from other academic dis ciplines and ps ychology in
particular.
Wieland's confus ion
probably repres ents the management
field's
thinking
about
organization s ociology.
Editorial N ote: This N ote was s ubmitted to the Acade-
my
of
Management Journal during
the trans itional
phas e
of
s ubmitting
review materials to the Review
ins tead of the Journal. It was
approved by
the Edito-
rial Review Board of the Review. All s uch future
Conceptual
N otes will relate to materials in the Re-
view.
Received 3/3/75; Accepted 5/8/75;
Revis ed 6/18/75.
Editorial N ote: This N ote was s ubmitted to the Acade-
my
of
Management Journal during
the trans itional
phas e
of
s ubmitting
review materials to the Review
ins tead of the Journal. It was
approved by
the Edito-
rial Review Board of the Review. All s uch future
Conceptual
N otes will relate to materials in the Re-
view.
Received 3/3/75; Accepted 5/8/75;
Revis ed 6/18/75.
Wieland's review of
organization s ociology
texts (9)
is reminis cent of
My
Fair
Lady's 'enry 'ig-
gins
who lamented that women weren't
jus t
like
William James Haga
(Ph.D.
-
Univers ity
of Illinois ) is As s o-
ciate Profes s or of
Management
and
Sociology
at the N aval
Pos tgraduate School, Monterey,
California.
Wieland's review of
organization s ociology
texts (9)
is reminis cent of
My
Fair
Lady's 'enry 'ig-
gins
who lamented that women weren't
jus t
like
William James Haga
(Ph.D.
-
Univers ity
of Illinois ) is As s o-
ciate Profes s or of
Management
and
Sociology
at the N aval
Pos tgraduate School, Monterey,
California.
92 92
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