Organizational Evaluation and Authority

Abstract

Authority systems in formal organizations are analyzed in terms of the process by which the performance of organizational participants is evaluated. Authority is viewed as authorization to attempt to control the behavior of others, and rests in four different kinds of authority rights, each of which is a component of the evaluation process. Authority systems are defined in terms of the distribution of these rights among participants. The theory specifies certain problems in the evaluation process, which make the authority system incompatible with participants' achievement of evaluations acceptable to them. Incompatible authority systems are postulated to be unstable and to remain so until the incompatibility is resolved. A set of indices is developed for the identification of unstable systems. This theory is the basis of a current study of authority systems in five organizations. W. Richard Scott is associate professor and Sanford M. Dornbusch is professor of sociology at Stanford University. Bruce C. Busching is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin and James D. Laing is assistant professor of political science at Stanford University.