THE SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY OF
ORGANIZATIONS
-Daniel Katz & Robert L. Kahn

Book Review By

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- Dhiren N Panchal

INTRODUCTION
NOTE: The book review has been written in present tense and as if I myself would have been an
author.

This book has its origin in the program of research on human relations in
organizations launched by Rensis Likert in 1947 as one of the major programs of the
survey research center of the University of Michigan. From its inception, this series of
researches has been concerned with problems of morale and motivation, productivity and
effectiveness, power& control, and leadership and change processes in large
organizations.
The book is an attempt to extend the description and explanation of organizational
processes we have shifted from an earlier emphasis on traditional concept of individual
psychology and interpersonal relationship. The interdependent behaviour of many people
in their supportive and complementary actions takes on a form or structure which needs
to be conceptualized at a more appropriate stage. Hence the effort has been directed at the
utilization of an open system point of view for the study of large scale organization

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Chapter1: Point of Departure

Past approaches to the study of social problems and social behaviour
have been limited by a lack of adequate conceptual tools. This limitation has
been manifest both in psychology and sociology, although in different ways.
Psychologists have been characteristically unable or willing to deal with
the fact of social organization and social structure. Societies and organizations
consist of patterned behaviours, and the behaviour of each individual is
determined to a considerable extent by the requirements of the larger pattern.
This context is not often incorporated into psychological theories. Some such
theories the psychoanalytic, for example- deal with the influence of the family
on the individual. Others take some account of the small group as the individual
environment, and still others are concerned with the influence of culture, that
most global of environmental concepts. Even social psychology, however, has
neglected the organizational and institutional level, and textbooks of social
psychology typically conclude with some treatment of small face-to-face groups.
This book is an attempt to extend such discussions by beginning where many left
off-with the behaviour of people in organizations. It is in that sense a second
book in social psychology.
The older sociological theories reflect a limitation complementary to the
theories of psychology. Sociological theories treat the superorganic or collective
level without reference to individual characteristics or to the attributes of
transactions between individuals. They are concerned with the products of such
interaction but not with the process. This general criticism must be modified for
Marx and Durkhiem, but is applicable nevertheless.
This book proposes that the resolution of such theoretical difficulties can
best be achieved by means of open-system theory. This theoretical approach is
not yet fully developed, but is exemplified by several important lines of work.
These include the event-structure theory of F.H.Allport, the general systems
approach of J.G.Miller and his colleagues, and the sociological theory of Talcott
Parsons. Open-systems theory seems to us to permit assumption of entropy, the
necessary dependence of any organization upon its environment. The opensystem concepts of energic input and maintenance point to the motives and
behaviour of the individuals who are the carriers of energies input for human
organizations; the concept of output and its necessary absorption by the larger
environment also links the micro- and macro levels of discourse. For all these
reasons, open-system theory represents the point of departure for the chapters
whish follow.

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Chapter2: Organizations and the system

Concept
The open-system approach to organizations is contrasted with commonsense approaches, which tend to accept popular names and stereotypes as basic
organization in terms of the goals of its founder and leaders.
The open-system approach, on the other hand, begins by identifying and
mapping the repeated cycles of input, transformation, output, and renewed input
which compromise the organizational represents the adaptation of work in
biology and in the physical sciences by Von Bertalanffy and others.
Organizations as a special class of open systems have properties of their
own, but they share other properties in common with all open systems. These
include the transformation of energy from the environment, the through-put or
transformation of the imported energy into some product form which is
characteristic of the system, the exporting of that product into the environment,
and the reenergizing of the system from sources in the environment.
Open system also share the characteristics of negative entropy, feedback,
homeostasis, differentiation, and equifinality. The law of negative entropy states
that systems survive and maintain their characteristics internal order only so long
as they import from the environment more energy than they expend in the
process of transformation and exportation. The feedback principle has to do with
information input, which is a special kind of energic importation, a kind of signal
to the system about environmental conditions and about the functioning of the
system in relation to its environment. The feedback of such information enables
the system to correct for its own malfunctioning or for changes in the
environment, and thus to maintain a steady state or homeostasis. This is a
dynamic rather than a static balance, however. Open system are not at rest but
tend toward differentiation and elaboration, both because of subsystem dynamics
and because of the relationship between growth and survival. Finally, open
systems are characterized by the principle of equifinality, which asserts that
systems can reach the same final state from different initial conditions and by
different paths of development.
Traditional organizational theories have tended to view the human
organization as a closed system. The tendency has led to a disregard of differing
organizational environments and the nature of organizational dependency on
environment. It has led also to an over concentration on principles of internal
organizational functioning, with consequent failure to develop and understand the
processes of feedback which are essential to survival.

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Chapter 3: Defining characteristic of

Social Organization
All open systems share certain properties, but these are insufficient for
adequate characterization of specific systems. It is useful therefore to create
categories of open systems and to attempt some delineation of their distinctive
properties.
Social systems, for example, lack the fixed physical structure of
biological and other physical systems. Social systems have structure, but it is a
structure of events rather than physical parts, a structure therefore inseparable
from the functioning of the system.
This unique aspect of social structure as compared with physical
structure implies great importance to maintenance inputs (which sustain the
system), in addition to production inputs (which are transformed and exported as
the system functions). This aspect of social structure reminds us also that social
organizations are contrived systems, held together by psychological bonds. The
contrived quality of social systems and their quality of event-structure mean that
they can be designed for a wide range of objectives, that they do not follow the
typical of the life cycle of physical systems, and that they require control
mechanism of various kinds to keep their component parts together and
functioning in the required interdependent fashion.
Three types of forces are involved in reducing human variability to the
patterns required for organizational functioning; environmental pressures
generated by the direct, observable requirements of a given situation, shared
values and expectations, and rule enforcement.
The formal patterns of behaviour achieved through rule enforcement are
role behaviours, sanctioned by norms, which are justified in their turn values.
Roles, norms, and values thus furnish three interrelated bases for integration of
organizations.
The integration process is complicated by the different dynamics of the
major organizational subsystems. These include the production or technical
subsystem, primarily concerned with the organizational through-put; the
production-supportive subsystems of procurement, disposal, and institutional
relations; the maintenance subsystems for attracting and holding people in their
functional roles; the adaptive subsystem, concerned with organizational change;
and the managerial subsystem, which directs and adjucates among all the others.
The presence of these subsystems and formal role pattern in terms of which they
function are among the major defining characteristics of social organizations as a
special class of open systems.
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Chapter4: Development of Organizational

Structure
Three classical models of organization are considered: the bureaucratic
theory of Max Weber, the public administration account of Luther Gulick, and
the scientific management approach of Frederick Taylor. All three have elements
in common, including an emphasis on process specialization of tasks,
standardization of
role performance, centralization of decision-making,
uniformity of practice, and the avoidance of duplication of functions, These
emphasis are descriptive in the case of Weber; they have the quality of advocacy
in the theories of Gulick and Taylor.
None of the three models, even the weberian, seems to us to deal
adequately with the transaction between an organization and its environment. All
three therefore offer no ready way for treating this major source of organizational
characteristics and organizational change. Open-system theory is offered as a
more adequate framework, and the development of organizations is described in
open-system terms.
Three stages of organizational development are considered. At stage 1
certain characteristics of a human population and some common environmental
problems interact to generate tasks demands and a primitive production structure
to fulfill them. At stage 2 devices for formulating and enforcing rules appear. An
authority structure emerges and becomes the basis for managerial and
maintenance subsystems. Stage 3 sees the further elaboration-structures for
procurement, disposal, and institutional relations.
Each of these organizational subsystems develops its own dynamic
tendencies-technical proficiency in the case of the production subsystem, stability
and predictability in the case of the maintenance subsystem, external control and
internal change in the case of the boundary and adaptive subsystems, and
compromise, control, and survival in the case of the managerial subsystem.
These dynamics tendencies of subsystems are not always manifest in the
same terms nor with the same strength. Moreover, there are tendencies which
characteristically dominate in organizations. One of the most important of these
is the maximization principle, which reflects organizational efforts at growth,
insured survival, and environmental control. The tendency toward maximization,
which solves at least temporarily many problems of internal strain and external
threat, is often overriding in human organization.

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Chapter5: A Topology of Organization

Some of the inherent difficulties of organizational typologies are
discussed, including the often-overemphasized uniqueness of individual
organizations, and the inability of pure types to account fully for the variability
encountered among organizations. Further difficulties include the absence of
logical limits to the process of creating categories, and the fact that some
organizational properties are readily conceptualized as continuous variables,
others as dichotomies, and still others in neither set of terms.
A topology of organization is proposed, based upon genotypic (firstorder) factors and second factors. The genotypic function is the function which
an organization performs as a subsystem of the larger society. Four such
functions are defined on the basis:
a) Productive or economic organizations- these organizations are concerned with
providing goods and services, and include mining, farming, manufacturing,
transportation, and communication.
b) Maintenance organizations- These organizations are concerned with the
socialization and training of people for roles in other organizations and in the
society at large. Schools and churches are the major examples of maintenance
organizations.
c) Adaptive organizations- These are organizations intended to create knowledge,
innovative solutions to problems, and the like. The research laboratory is the
prototype of such organizations, and universities (as research organizations rather
than teaching organizations) would also belong in this category.
d) Managerial political organizations- These organizations have to do with the
coordination and control of people and resources, and with adjucating among
competing groups. The national state and the agencies of government at lesser
levels provide the major examples of this category, although pressure groups,
labor unions, and other special-interest organizations would also be classified as
managerial political.
Second characteristics can reflect specific aspects of structure, the nature of
environmental transactions, internal transactions, and limitless other
organizational properties. A discussion of several second-order characteristics is
offered in the following terms:
(1) Nature of organizational through-put-a distinction between objects and people
as the end products of organizational functioning.

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(2) Nature of maintenance process-a distinction between expressive (intrinsic)
rewards and instrumental (extraneous) rewards as ways of attracting and holding
members in organizations.
(3) Nature of bureaucratic structure-a distinction in terms of permeability of
organizational boundaries (ease of joining and leaving), and in terms of structural
elaboration (degree of role specialization and number of echelons).
(4) Type of equilibrium-a distinction between the tendency to a steady state and
the tendency toward maximization of organizational return as dominant
organizational dynamics.

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Chapter 6: The Concept of Organizational

Effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness is introduced as a term which has been
subject to numerous and conflicting uses. An attempt is made to resolve such
conflicts by distinguishing among several components of organizational
effectiveness.
Organizational efficiency is the first such component, and is defined as
the ratio of energic output to energic input. Efficiency thus tells us the ratio of the
input of an organization emerges as product and how much is absorbed by the
system. Further distinctions are made between human energy and materials as
organizational inputs, between direct and indirect uses of human energy in
organizations, and between the use of materials as supplies and as equipment.
The computation of organizational of organizational efficiency is shown to be
dependant upon the spatial and temporal definitions of organizations.
A further distinction is introduced between the potential efficiency of an
organization and its actual efficiency. This distinction contrasts the elegance of a
given organizational design with the degree to which a given design is realized in
organizational practice.
Efficiency is also distinguished from profit, although the two are
asserted to be strongly related. The contribution of efficiency to survival is
discussed in terms of the storage of energy which efficiency permits and the
consequent margin for error which it provides.
The chapter concludes with an explication of organizational
effectiveness as the maximization of return to the organization by all means.
Such maximization by economic and technical means has to do with efficiency;
maximization by non-economic or political means increase effective ness without
adding to efficiency. Increases in effectiveness by both means are typically
observable as storage of energy, organizational growth, organizational endurance
and survival, and as organizational control of the surrounding environment. All
definitions of effectiveness involve some assumptions with respect to frame of
reference. Two such frames are considered, that of the organization as a system
in its own right, and that of the larger society or system of which the organization
is a subsystem.

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Chapter 7: The Taking of Organizational

Roles
The concept of role is proposed as the major means for linking the
individual and organizational levels of research theory; it is at once the building
blocks of social system and the summation of the requirements with which such
systems confront their members as individuals. Each person in an organization is
linked to some set of other members by virtue of the functional requirement of
the system which are heavily implemented through the expectations those
members have of him; he is the focal person for that set. An organization can be
viewed as consisting of a number of such sets, one for each person in the
organization.
The process by which the expectations of member of a role set are linked
to the behaviour of the focal person for that person for that set is described in
terms of role episodes. The role episode in turn consists of a sequence of events
involving members of a role set and the focal person. The sequence begins with
the role expectations held by members of the set for the focal person; these are
activities which they require of him in order to perform their own roles or to
maintain their own satisfactions. The next step in the role episode is the sending
of these expectations from the members of the set to the focal person, the
communication of role requirements in terms intended to influence his behaviour.
With the communication of role expectations from role set to focal
person, the first half of the role episode is completed. The second half has to do
with the perceptions and behaviour of the focal person. He receives, with greater
or lesser distortion, the role expectations sent to him. It is received role which is
the immediate source of influence and motivation of his behaviour (insofar as it
is influenced by members of his role set). Finally, the focal person acts; he
behaves in role, showing some combinations of compliance and some
noncompliance with the expectations of his set. They observe and evaluate his
behaviour in relation to their expectations and needs, and thus the cycle moves
into another episode.
Several complications are considered in connection with the treatment of
organizational role in these terms. One role may involve many activities; multiple
roles may be incorporated in a single office that is, intended for performance by a
single individual. Moreover, one person may hold a number of offices. Each of
these elaborations adds its own complications to the simple situation in which a
single recurrent activity comprises a role, which in turn comprises an office
occupied by a person without additional organizational commitments.
Three oversimplifications of the role episode are considered; the fact
that organizational life is continuous rather than made up in discrete episodes, the
fact that members of a role set are often in disagreement among themselves with
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respect to what the focal person should do, and the fact that the role episode
occurs within and is shaped by a matrix of organizational influences. Four basic
categories of role conflict are considered: incompatible expectations held by a
given member of a role set (intrasender conflict); incompatible expectations held
by two or more members (intersender conflict); incompatibilities between two or
more roles held by the same focal person (interrole conflict); and
incompatibilities between the requirements of a role and the needs or values of
the person holding it (person-role conflict).
The chapter concludes with a review of the empirical evidence bearing
on the model of role-sending and role behaviour which has been proposed.

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Chapter 8: Power & Authority

In this chapter we have sought to explore the relation ships between the
structural characteristics of authority in organizations and the patterns of
interpersonal transactions which comprise this structure in ongoing
organizational life. We find that the organization has means and techniques for
the exertion of influence, channels for doing so, and organizationally determined
content which requires the exertion of influence.
We located the origin of organizationally influence and authority in the
division of labor, with its stipulation of sequential and interdependent cycles
which in combination get the organizational task done. Authority structure is
intended to insure the performance of these cycles, and secondarily to introduce
necessary changes in their specification. This means that the authority structure
must provide for the supervision (or review) of organizationally required acts,
and exert correction or innovative influence as prescribed.
The exercise of authority in an organization should not be confused with
authoritarianism. Organizations can have a democratic structure in which the
source of legislative power is vested in the membership and the executive
directives are an implementation of the wishes of the majority. Members still
obey the rules. In an authoritarian system, however, both legislative and
executive systems are under the control of the top echelons.
The process of insuring that each persons behaviour shall be observed
by another person to see that the requirements of organization are met is
inevitably a source of great cost. Accordingly there are consistent efforts to
minimize these costs and the shape and process of authority reflects these efforts.
The grouping of similar and related jobs under a single supervisor is a major
example. This pattern, in combination with the building in of supervisory
insurance by means of overlapping areas of authority (each supervisor having
authority over his immediate subordinates and also their subordinates, etc.),
creates the characteristic pyramidal shape of the authority structure. The
organizational tendency to vest each function in a single role and office makes it
almost certain that the pyramid of authority will continue to the apex, at which an
entire level of authority is expressed in only a single office.
We turned from a discussion of authority structure to an analysis of the
interpersonal transactions which constitute this structure. In addition to the
recognized role requirements by means of which the organizational tasks is
achieved, we asserted a super ordinate requirement of hierarchical organizationthe necessity of obedience to legitimate authority as a condition for continued
membership and access to the benefits of organization.

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We are led by these analyses to an attitude of great respect for formal,
hierarchical organization. It is an instrument of great achievement of great
effectiveness; it offers great economies over unorganized effort; it achieves great
unity and compliance. We must face up to its deficiencies, however. These
include great waste of human potential for innovation and creativity and great
psychological cost to the members, many of whom spend their lives in
organizations without caring much either for the system (except its extrinsic
rewards and accidental interpersonal relationships) or for the goal toward which
the system effort is directed. The modification of hierarchical organization to
meet these criticisms is one of the great needs of human life.

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Chapter 9: Communication: The Flow of

Information
Human organizations are informational as well as energic systems, and
both the exchange of energy and the exchange of information must be considered
in order to understand the functioning of organizations. Information exchange is
itself energic, of course, but its energic aspects are of minor significance
compared to its symbolic aspects. In other words, information transmission is
significant for what it implies, triggers, or controls. In general, the closer one gets
to the center of organization control and decision making, the greater is the
emphasis on information exchange and transmittal.
The importance of information process to organizational functioning
does not imply, however, a simple relationship between amount of
communication and organizational effectiveness. The advocacy of
communication as a desideratum of organization needs to be qualified with
respect to the kind of information requirements for the solution of given
problems, and with respect o the nature of communication process between
individuals, groups, and subsystems of organizations. Indeed, social systems can
be defined as restricted communication networks; unrestricted communication
implies noise and inefficiency.
Every organization thus must solve the problem of what patters of
communication shall be instituted, what information shall be directed to the
offices. One issue in establishing such a pattern is information overload. There
are limits to the amount of communication which can be received, coded, and
effectively handled by an individual. The tendency to overload certain executive
offices with communication s is strong, and the responses of individuals to
information overload are often maladaptive. Miller has identified seven
categories of response to information overload, each of which can be assessed in
terms of its adaptive or maladaptive implication for the individual and the
organization. These categories include omission, error, queuing, filtering,
approximation, multiple channels, and escape
Five dimensions are proposed for characterizing communications
circuits in organization:
(a) The size of the loop; that is, the amount of organizational space encompassed
by the communication circuit;
(b) The nature of circuit;
(c) The openness of the circuit; that is, the extent to which messages can be
modified once the communication process has been initiated;
(d) The efficiency of the circuit for task completion; that is, the speed and
accuracy with which the circuit permits the completion of specified tasks; and
(e) The goodness of fit between the circuit and its systemic function.
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Further distinctions are made between communication in a hierarchical

organization directed upwards, those directed downwards, and those directed
horizontally. Each of these directions implies characteristic content of messages.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of formal communication
devices, such as operational feedback, operations research, and systemic research.
The hypothesis is offered that communication and information subsystems are
often located disadvantageously in organizations, both in terms of accessibility to
top leaders and in terms of contamination of the information- getting process.

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Chapter 10: Policy Formation & Decision

Making
An organizational policy is an abstraction or generalization about
organizational behaviour, at a level which has structural implications for the
organization. Such generalization can be made retrospectively, as recognitions of
existing practice; the more interesting process, however, is policy making, the
making of general statements of what organizational behaviour shall be. The
making of policy in this sense is at once a category of decision making, an aspect
of organizational change, and perhaps the most significant expression of
leadership.
Organizational decisions can be characterized on three dimensions: level
of generality or abstraction, amount of organizational space affected, and
duration. Two major categories of policy making are proposed, based upon these
dimensions: the formulation of organizational goals and objectives, and the
formulation of strategies and procedures for achieving and assessing progress
towards such goals.
The formulation of organizational goals includes sharpening and
clarifying present organizational purposes, adding new objectives or relinquishing
old ones, shifting priorities among objectives, and altering the major mission of
the organization. Examples of all these policy making activities are considered.
Least in evidence of all these policy making evidence are major shifts in
organizational mission, which are opposed by all the stability-seeking machinery
of the organization itself.
That form of policy making which deals with strategy and assessment of
performance in relation to accepted goals involves some what different activities.
These include the development of criteria for decision-making, and the
development of feedback measures which provide information about the
adequacy of present organizational functioning. Feedback measures in principle
can be constructed around any internal organizational process and around any
continuing transaction between an organization and its environment. In practice
these potentialities for guiding data are little developed. Once accounting, sales,
profitability, and growth are in general use as feedback mechanisms established
and maintained as matters of policy. The limitations of these devices arte
considered, particularly under conditions of rapid and continuing technological
change.
To define policy-making as a category of decision making raises very
general questions about how decisions are made, what situational factors affect
the making of them, and what inherent limitations in rational decision processes
are implied by the nature of human beings as decision-makers. The latter sections
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of the chapter deals with these issues. Decision-making is described is described
in terms of four stages, in accordance with the schema first proposed by John
Dewey, In sequence these include immediate pressure or felt difficulty
experienced by the decision-maker, analysis of the presenting problem and its
basic dimensions, search for alternative solutions, and consideration of the
consequences of these alternatives.
In any specific instance movement through these stages and the
decisional outcome itself will be affected by the nature of the problem, the
organizational context, the personality characteristic of the decision-makers, and
the cognitive limitations of human beings. These include the determination of
thought processes by position in social space, identification with outside reference
groups, projection of ones own values and attitudes, the tendency toward
undifferentiated or dichotomized thinking and toward cognitive nearsightedness,
and the reliance on oversimplified notions of causality. The chapter concludes
with a review of several systemic checks on such tendencies which can be built
into formal organizations.

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Chapter 11: Leadership

In the description of organizations, no word is more used than leadership,
and perhaps no word is used with such varied meanings. Leadership is sometimes
used as if it were an attribute of personality, sometimes as if it were a
characteristic of certain position, and sometimes as an attribute of behaviour. The
last of these seems to offer distinct conceptual advantages, and we define
leadership in behavioral terms as any act of influence on a matter of
organizational relevance.
This definition of leadership includes many routine acts of supervision;
the essence of leadership, however, has to do with that influential increment
which goes beyond routine and taps bases of power beyond those which are
organizationally decreed. These include referential power, which depend upon
personal liking between leader and follower, and expert power, which depends
upon the knowledge and ability of the leader. In contrast to these are the
organizationally given powers of reward, punishment, and legitimate authority.
One may question the need for leadership so defined, and ask why an
organization properly designed for its purpose will not function adequately
without acts of leadership. The answer lies in four inescapable facts of
organizational life: necessary incompleteness of organizational design, changing
environmental conditions, internal dynamics of organization, and chart of human
membership in organizations.
No organizational chart and no book of policies and procedures can
specify every act and prescribe for every contingency encountered in a complex
organization. To attempt such specification merely produces an array of
instructions so ponderous that they are ignored for the sake of transacting the
business of the organization. Moreover, even if such specification could be
provided, they would soon be out of date. Organizations are open systems exist in
ever changing environments. Each change in the environment implies a demand
for change within the organization. To some extent such demands are foreseeable
and the appropriate responses can be programmed; to some extent they require
leadership beyond such responses. Additional factors which mitigate against
organizational stability and create a continuing need for leadership are the uneven
development and different dynamics of the several organizational, and the
segmental nature of human membership in organizations.
To analyze leadership behaviour, we propose three categories or levels of
leadership acts, differentiated in terms of their effects on organizational structure:
the origination of structure, or the policy formulation; the interpolation of
structure, or the piecing out of policies to meet immediate problems; and the use
of structure, or the routine administration of applying prescribed remedies for
predicted problems. Each of these categories of leadership behaviour is
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characteristically encountered at a different organizational level, and each requires
for successful use a different cognitive style, different kinds of knowledge, and
different affective characteristics.
Finally, no pattern of leadership is appropriate foe all phases of
organizational life. There is evidence, however, that the broad sharing of
leadership functions contributes to organizational effectiveness under almost all
circumstances.

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Chapter 12: Psychological Basis of

Organizational Effectiveness
This chapter attempts to develop a comprehensive framework for
predicting the effectiveness in terms which specify the types of behaviour
required for organizational effectiveness, the different motive patterns which can
evoke such behaviour, and the organizational conditions which elicit these motive
patterns.
Three categories of behaviour are required to achieve high levels of
organizational effectiveness. People must join and remain in the organization;
they must perform dependably the roles assigned to them; and they must perform
dependably the roles assigned to them; and they engage in occasional innovative
and cooperative behavior beyond the requirements of role but in the service of
organizational objectives. More specific behaviors are described with in each of
these broad categories.
Four motive patterns are proposed as characteristics of organizations and
as capable of producing the required behaviors in varying degrees. These are legal
compliance, instrumental satisfaction, self expression, and internalization of
organizational goals.
The complex sequences which link these and other mediating variables
can be summarized for each of the four motive patterns, as follows:
Legal compliance is evoked by the use of unambiguous symbols of
authority, backed by the use or threatened use of penalties. It tends to produce
performance at the minimum acceptable level, and to generate no particular
willingness to remain in the organization when alternatives are available.
Instrumental satisfaction is evoked by the use of rewards, and is more
strongly evoked as the rewards are immediate, constant, and adequate. The
behavioral patterns produced by reliance on rewards vary according to these
factors, and also depend heavily on whether the rewards are systemwide or tied
more specifically to performance. In general, system rewards hold people in the
system but do not necessarily encourage more than minimally acceptable
performance and are ineffective for stimulating innovative behavior. Individual
rewards for performance are difficult to apply in large-scale organizations but
under the proper conditions of immediacy, constancy, and adequacy can lead to
increased productive effort.
The motive of self-expression depends primarily on objective attributes
of the job itself. As the job increases in complexity, variety, and responsibility,
the individual has increased opportunity to express his skills and abilities through
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performance on the job. High productivity and strong attraction to the
occupational system are charactertics of this motive pattern.
The internalization of organizational goals is at once the most effective
of motive patterns and the most difficult t evoke within the limits of conventional
organizational practice and policy. The extent of internalization depends upon the
character of the organizational goals themselves, and their congruence with the
needs and values of the individual. It depends also on the extent to which the
individual shares actively in the determination of organizational decisions and in
the rewards which accrue to the organization. High internalization of
organizational goals tends to result in low absence and turnover, high
productivity, and maximal spontaneity and innovativeness in the service of those
goals.
This chapter concludes with a review of the empirical research findings
which bear upon the preceding framework. They are too few and too scattered to
test it fully, but the major patterns of research results are compatible with the
framework as proposed.

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22

Chapter 13: Organizational Change

The study and the accomplishment of organizational change has
been handicapped by the tendency to disregard systemic properties of
organizations and to confuse individual change with change in organizational
variables. More specifically, scientists and practitioners have assumed too often
that an individual change will produce a corresponding organizational change.
This assumption seems to us indefensible. To clarify the issue this chapter
analyzes seven approaches to organizational change, and considers their
charactertics strengths and weaknesses.
Information- The supplying of additional cognitive input has real but
limited value as a way of creating organizational change. It can support other
methods, give the rationale for proposed changes, and explain what will be
expected of individuals. It is not, however, a source of motivation; other methods
are required to provide the necessary motive force to change. Moreover, the target
of information is necessarily the individual and not the organization.
Individual counseling and therapy- These methods represent attempts, in
part successful, to avoid the limitations of mere information giving and to bring
about individual change at a deeper level. It is true that the production of new
insight can lead to deeper and more enduring changes in attitudes, and therefore to
tendencies toward altered behavior. The target of such attempts is still the
individual, however, and the translation of his new insights t organizational
change is left wholly to him.
Influence of the peer group- A third, and in many ways a more potent,
approach to organizational change is through the influence of the peer group. It is
based on the undeniable fact that peers do constitute strong influences on
individual behavior, and that a process of change successfully initiated in a peer
group approach to organizational change. If the peer group consists of strangers
without a common organizational affiliation, they face the same problems of
transferring their insights and individual changes that we have already noted for
individual approaches. If on the other hand the peer group is taken intact from the
organizational, it is likely to be inhibited in its change efforts by the role and
authority structure which characterize it in the organizational setting.
Sensitivity training- This technique is essentially an ingenious extension
of the peer-group approach to individual and organizational change. The primary
target of change remains the individual, although recent variations of this training
technique deal specifically with the problem of adapting individual change to the
organizational context.
Group therapy in organizations- This approach is best illustrated by the
work of Jaques, and some of his colleagues in the Tavistock Institute. It has
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23
shown significant results, and represents an original and important fusion of
individual therapy and the psychology of organizations. Its most serious limitation
is the assumption that organizational conflicts are primarily the expression of
individual characteristics and neuroses, for the most part unrecognized by the
individual.
Feedback- This approach to organizational change developed out of the
attempt to make survey research results more usable by management. It has
evolved in to a well-defined procedure which relies on discussion of relevant
findings by organizational families, each consisting of a supervisor and his
immediate subordinates. The organization wide use of feedback begins with the
president and his executive vice presidents, and works through the hierarchy of
organizational families in order. The targets of this demonstrably effective
technique are personal a role relations within the organizational family.
Systemic change- In our view this is the most powerful approach to
changing human organizations. It requires the direct manipulation of
organizational variables. One example of this approach is the work of Morse and
Reimer, in which the target of change was the hierarchical distribution of
decision-making power in a large clerical organization. Other examples are
provided in the work of Trist and Rice, in mining and textile industries
respectively. The target of change in their work is the goodness of fit between the
social and the technical systems which comprise the organization.
The concluding sections of this chapter deal with the broad issue of
change and stability in organizations, and consider the relative significance of
inputs from the environment and internal strains as sources of organizational
change. The argument is made that changed inputs of various kinds are the most
important sources of organizational change.

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