Page 156 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Contingency, choice and organizational environments

Loosely coupled

High Organic
complexity structures
Adaptive
structures

Low Professional Administrative
complexity bureaucracy bureaucracy

Weak Strong
resource resource
base base
Figure 8.3 Organization design (derived from Lawrence and Dyer, 1983)

and resource scarcity (which might mean high levels of competition for sales in
a private sector example or government restrictions on expenditure for a public
sector organization). Information complexity refers to the diversity of (uncer-
tainty about) the technologies and opportunities (and threats) in the organiza-
tion’s environment. For example, where the organization is dealing with a
complex and changing environment with high levels of competition then a
fluid and responsive organizational structure is essential. A trading company is
a typical case. Conversely, professional bureaucracy is an appropriate structure
where the organization deals with low levels of competition and well-established
technology. However, such organizations experience significant tensions if the
environment changes suddenly and dramatically. A typical case would be uni-
versities – compare the typical university in the 1960s with the changes that

took place in the 1980s.
Figure 8.4 reproduces Figure 8.3 with typical functions substituted for each
organizational form. For example, where markets are tight and the environment
complex, the emphasis may well be on sales (to generate income) rather than on
marketing (which costs money, takes time and may rapidly become outdated).
This is a controversial view. Many marketing people will argue the contrary posi-
tion, yet the situation we describe is that of the trading company – which tends
to do little formal marketing. In practice organizations attempt to control their
environments to some degree. Is there a tendency to operate at medium levels?
In any event, perhaps most organizations find themselves operating in environ-
ments where adaptation and general management are both crucial.
What specific changes are needed to move an organization towards the adap-
tive structure? These are summarized in Figure 8.5 (again following Lawrence and
Dyer, 1983), from which it is clear that these comprise either means of achieving
more focus and business-orientated effort (or at least efforts that are more

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