Charles Perrow Quotes

Organization theory...has been altogether too accommodating to organizations and their power.

In a modern society, where large organizations have acquired unprecedented importance, social scientists have increasingly sought to understand the nature of organizational goals - what they are, what shapes or determines them, what their impact is upon the environment, and how they change.

This article [entitled A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations], was one of three independent statements in 1967 of what came to be called "contingency theory." It held that the structure of an organization depends upon (is ‘contingent’ upon) the kind of task performed, rather than upon some universal principles that apply to all organizations. The notion was in the wind at the time.

In research terms, the issue is to examine and explain the variations within and among residential institutions.

The dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task that is most critical (to the organization), their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based on their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own ends.

I consider all large organizations troublesome, including governmental and nonprofit organizations. They concentrate power in the hands of their top management; the larger the organization, the greater the power being concentrated. There are degrees of concentration of course, and some large organizations are so disorganized that they lose much of their potential power. But size is generally correlated with these kinds of power: By deciding where to locate they determine economic opportunities for some communities and deny it to others. Their hiring decisions affect the life chances of people, and can, unless checked, favor religious, ethnic, racial, and political affiliations. As consumers of resources, they can favor certain producers over others, and not necessarily on the grounds of “efficiency.” They can mobilize political resources to insure favored treatment better than small organizations.

Barnard comes close to joining Roethlisberger and Dickson in their assumption that management behavior is mainly rational and workers' behavior nonrational.

Inspection of the questionnaires also indicated that because staff members in the more custodial institutions were more willing to use negative sanctions they probably were confronted with less disruptive behavior, since the inmates recognized the costs of acting as they felt.

As with all theories, we can learn something from agency theory and transaction-costs economics, since they emphasize something others hide. But as with all theories, they also distort; in fact, I will argue that their distortions outweigh the value of what they highlight.

As an organizational sociologist, I was interested in the system characteristics of large accidents, but the discipline also made me aware of the organizational genesis of male-made disasters.

It is surprising how much discipline is imposed upon theory by requiring that it ‘make a difference’ and provide guidance or useful illumination. I learned long ago from students in professional schools that questions of ‘so what’ or ‘what relevance does this have’ do not signify impatience with theory per se, much less anti-intellectualism, but only impatience with the obvious, general, remote, and vague statements that often parade as social science theory. One test of good theory is that it have practical implications.

The power structure will generally dictate the operative goals of the organization.

The concept of organizational goals, like the concepts of power, authority, or leadership, has been unusually resistant to precise, unambiguous definition. Yet a definition of goals is necessary and unavoidable in organizational analysis. Organizations are established to do something; they perform work directed toward some end.

A great deal of organizational effort is exerted to control the effects of extra-organizational influence:; upon personnel. Daily, people come contaminated into the organization... Many of the irritating aspects of [[organizational structure] are designed to control these sources of contamination.

Executives were closely observed at work at their desks, at staff meetings, while talking with inmates or moving about the grounds and so on, and again in the feedback sessions when we gave them findings.