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Engineers speak of a “control loop,” in which the “man in the loop” is the problematical element. This is the human component in a series of sequenti… - Charles Perrow
" "Engineers speak of a “control loop,” in which the “man in the loop” is the problematical element. This is the human component in a series of sequentially interacting pieces of equipment that control or adjust a function. But when the pilot is suddenly and unexpectedly brought into the control loop (in other words, participates in decision making) as a result of (inevitable) equipment failure, he is disoriented. Long periods of passive monitoring make one unprepared to act in emergencies. The sudden appearance of several alarms, all there for safety reasons, leads to disorientation.
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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 Perrow graduated in 1960 at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Philip Selznick, with the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Authority, Goals, and Prestige in a General Hospital."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
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C. B. Perrow
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Charles Bryce Perrow
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Nonroutine tasks:... There are few well-established techniques; there is little certainty about methods, or whether or not they will work. But it also means that there may be a variety of different task to perform, in the sense that raw materials are not standardized, or orders for customers ask for many different or custom-made products.
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To call for decentralization, representative bureaucracy, collegial authority, or employee-centered, innovative or organic organizations - to mention only a few of the highly normative prescriptions that are being offered by social scientists today - is to call for a type of structure that can be realized only with a certain type of technology, unless we are willing to pay a high cost in terms of output. Given a routine technology, the much maligned Weberian bureaucracy probably constitutes the socially optimum form of organizational structure.
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