People's attitudes are shaped at least as much by the organization in which they work as by their pre-existing attitudes. - Charles Perrow

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People's attitudes are shaped at least as much by the organization in which they work as by their pre-existing attitudes.

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About Charles Perrow

Charles B. Perrow (born February 9, 1925) is an American Emeritus Professor of sociology at and visiting professor at . He is the author of several books and many articles on organizations, and is primarily concerned with the impact of large organizations on society. Perrow graduated in 1960 at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Philip Selznick, with the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Authority, Goals, and Prestige in a General Hospital." Perrow's research interests broadened over the years. Nowadays they include "the development of bureaucracy in the 19th Century; the radical movements of the 1960s; Marxian theories of industrialization and of contemporary crises; accidents in such high risk systems as nuclear plants, air transport, DNA research and chemical plants; protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure; the prospects for democratic work organizations; and the origins of U.S. capitalism (source: yale.edu)."

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Alternative Names: Charles B. Perrow C. B. Perrow Charles Bryce Perrow
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Additional quotes by Charles Perrow

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.

Organizational theorists, at least since the pioneering work of Burns and Stalker, 1961 and Joan Woodward, 1965 and others in what came to be called the contingency school, have recognized that centralization is appropriate for organizations with routine tasks, and decentralization for those with nonroutine tasks. For an early statement see Perrow 1967, and Lawrence and Lorch, 1967.

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.

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