Organizational Pathology and Industrial Crisis

Abstract

Much has been said about the effects of industrial crises. But too little is known about their organizational roots. This paper distinguishes among financial, hu man and environmental crises and attempts to show how some very common types of pathological organizations can contribute to the development of dif ferent types of crises. The organizational types are denoted as compulsive, dra matic, depressive, detached, and suspicious. It is shown that the roots of their proclivites towards crisis can run very deep within and broadly pervade these pathological types of firms and may therefore be quite resistant to change. Often revolutionary 'quantum' change rather than evolutionary, incremental change will be needed to prevent industrial crises.

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