The Analysis of Goals in Complex Organizations

TLDR

Organizational behavior research has largely focused on morale, turnover, and communication, yet few studies examine organizational goals, and analysis has been impeded by limited focus and an over‑rationalistic perspective. The study proposes a scheme linking technology and growth stages to capital, legitimization, skills, and coordination in order to approximate operative goals and highlight the critical role of goal analysis for understanding organizational behavior. The authors model how technology and growth stages predict power structure and the limits and range of operative goals through their impact on major task areas. The scheme is illustrated with voluntary general hospitals and extended to other voluntary, non‑voluntary service, and profit‑making organizations.

Abstract

An understanding of organizational behavior requires close examination of the goals of the organization reflected in operating policies. To reach a first approximation of operative goals, a scheme is proposed which links technology and growth stages to major task areas-capital, legitimization, skills, and coordination-which predict to power structure and thence to limits and range of operative goals. The major illustration of the utility of the scheme is provided by voluntary general hospitals; other voluntary and non-voluntary service organizations are discussed, in these terms, as well as profit-making organizations. SOCIAL scientists have produced a rich body of knowledge about many aspects of large-scale organizations, yet there are comparatively few studies of the goals of these organizations. For a full understanding of organizations and the behavior of their personnel, analysis of organizational goals would seem to be critical. Two things have impeded such analysis. Studies of morale, turnover, informal organization, communication, supervisory practices, etc., have been guided by an over-rationalistic point of