Measuring Organizational Structures and Environments

Abstract

This article provides a descriptive overview of the work establishments in the National Organizations Study (NOS). It begins by reviewing their auspices, industry settings, and composition. Next, it introduces the survey items and scales used to measure coordination and control structures including structural differentiation, formalization, decentralization, and the presence of internal labor markets. Other items and scales refer to aspects of the technical and institutional environments. The NOS includes a quite diverse set of establishments, most of which provide services rather than produce goods. The public, nonprofit, and private, for-profit sectors are well represented. A sizable fraction of the workplaces are parts of larger organizations. Differences between descriptive statistics for the unweighted and weighted NOS samples highlight differences in the structures and environments of larger and smaller establishments.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aldrich, H. E. (1979). Organizations and environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Aldrich, H. E. , & Marsden, P. V. (1988). Environments and organizations. In N. J. Smelser (Ed.), Handbook of sociology (pp. 361-392). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Baron, J. N. , Dobbin, F. R. , & Jennings, P. D. (1986). War and peace: The evolution of modern personnel administration in U.S. industry. American Journal of Sociology, 31, 248-273.

Dill, W. R. (1958). Environment as an influence on managerial autonomy. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2, 409-443.

DiMaggio, P. J. , & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-160.

Dobbin, F. R. , Edelman, L. , Meyer, J. W. , Scott, W. R. , & Swidler, A. (1988). The expansion of due process in organizations. In L. G. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment (pp. 71-98). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.

Edwards, R. (1979). Contested terrain: The transformation of the workplace in the twentieth century. New York: Basic Books.

Jacoby, S. M. (1985). Employing bureaucracy: Managers, unions, and the transformation of work in American industry, 1900-1945. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kimberly, J. (1976). Organization size and the structuralist perspective: A review, critique and proposal. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 571-597.

10.

Knoke, D. (1990). Organizing for collective action: The political economies of associations. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

11.

Kochan, T. A. , Katz, H. C. , & McKersie, R. B. (1986). The transformation of American industrial relations. New York: Basic Books.

12.

Lincoln, J. R. , & Kalleberg, A. L. (1990). Culture, control and commitment: A study of work organizations and work attitudes in the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.

13.

Little, R.J.A. , & Rubin, D. B. (1987). Statistical analysis with missing data. New York: Wiley.

14.

Meyer, J. W. , & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340-364.

15.

Meyer, J. , & Scott, W. R. (Eds.). (1983). Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

16.

Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

17.

Osterman, P. (Ed.). (1984). Internal labor markets. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

18.

Powell, W. W. , & DiMaggio, P. J. (Eds.). (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

19.

Pugh, D. S. , Hickson, D. J. , & Hinings, C. R. (1969). An empirical taxonomy of structures of work organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 14, 115-126.

20.

Pugh, D. S. , Hickson, D. J. , Hinings, C. R. , & Turner, C. (1968). Dimensions of organizational structure. Administrative Science Quarterly, 13, 65-91.

21.

Reskin, B. , & Roos, P. (1990). Job queues, gender queues: Explaining women's inroads into male occupations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

22.

Scott, W. R. (1983). The organization of environments: Network, cultural, and historical elements. In J. W. Meyer & W. R. Scott (Eds.), Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality (pp. 155-175). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

23.

Scott, W. R. (1992). Organizations: Rational, natural, and open systems (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

24.

Williamson, O. E. (1981). The economics of organization: The transaction cost approach. American Journal of Sociology, 87, 548-577.

25.

Winship, C., & Radbill, L. (in press). Sampling weights and regression analysis. Sociological Methods and Research.