„Organizations are complex and paradoxical phenomena that can be understood in many different ways. Many of our taken-for-granted ideas about organizations are metaphorical, even though we may not recognize them as such. For example, we frequently talk about organizations as if they were machines designed to achieve predetermined goals and objectives, and which should operate smoothly and efficiently. And as a result of this kind of thinking, we often attempt to organize and manage them in a mechanistic way, forcing their human qualities into a background role. By using different metaphors to understand the complex and paradoxical character of organizational life, we are able to manage and design organizations in ways that we may not have thought possible before.“

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— Gareth Morgan, buch Images of Organization

Quelle: Images of Organization (1986), p. 13; Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2011) Fifty key figures management, p. 205

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Gareth Morgan

Organisationstheoretiker 1943

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„We create organizations to serve us, but somehow they also force us to serve them. Sometimes it feels as if our institutions have run out of control, like the machinery of Charlie Chaplin's film Modem Times. Why we should become slaves to our servants… A society of organizations is one in which organizations enter our lives as influential forces in a great many ways — in how we work, what we eat, how we get educated and cured of our illnesses, how we get entertained, and how our ideas are shaped. The ways in which we try to control our organization and our organization in return try to control us become major issues in the lives of all of us.“

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— Henry Mintzberg Canadian busines theorist 1939

Henry Mintzberg (1989) Mintzberg on management: inside our strange world of organizations. p. 301. As cited in: R. van den Nieuwenhof (2003) 2 strategie: omgaan met de omgeving. p. 36

„In today's volatile world, organizational design is an everyday, ongoing activity and challenge for every executive, whether managing a global enterprise or a small work team. Globalization, worldwide competition, deregulation, and ever-new technologies drive the ongoing reassessment of the organization. The executive response has been many new forms of organizational design: virtual, learning, modular, cellular, network, alliance, or spaghetti – to name a few. New organizational forms challenge old ways of organizing for efficiency and effectiveness. Yet fundamental design principles underlie any well-functioning organization. Organizations still require a formal design.“

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— Richard M. Burton 1939

Richard M. Burton, ‎Børge Obel, ‎Gerardine DeSanctis (2011). Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. p. 3

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— Gerardine DeSanctis American organizational theorist 1954 - 2005

Richard M. Burton ‎Børge Obel, ‎Gerardine DeSanctis (2011). Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. p. 3

„If we are to prevent megatechnics from further controlling and deforming every aspect of human culture, we shall be able to do so only with the aid of a radically different model derived directly, not from machines, but from living organisms and organic complexes (ecosystems).“

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— Lewis Mumford, buch The Myth of the Machine

The Myth of the Machine (1967-1970), The Pentagon of Power (1970)
Kontext: If we are to prevent megatechnics from further controlling and deforming every aspect of human culture, we shall be able to do so only with the aid of a radically different model derived directly, not from machines, but from living organisms and organic complexes (ecosystems). What can be known about life only through the process of living — and so is part of even the humblest organisms — must be added to all the other aspects that can be observed, abstracted, measured. … Once an organic world picture is in the ascendant, the working aim of an economy of plenitude will be not to feed more human functions into the machine, but to develop further man's incalculable potentialities for self-actualization and self-transendence, taking back into himself deliberately many of the activities he has too supinely surrendered into the mechanical system. <!-- p. 395

„This article [entitled A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations], was one of three independent statements in 1967 of what came to be called "contingency theory." It held that the structure of an organization depends upon (is ‘contingent’ upon) the kind of task performed, rather than upon some universal principles that apply to all organizations. The notion was in the wind at the time.
I think we were all convinced we had a breakthrough, and in some respects we did — there was no one best way of organizing; bureaucracy was efficient for some tasks and inefficient for others; top managers tried to organize departments (research, production) in the same way when they should have different structures; organizational comparisons of goals, output, morale, growth, etc., should control for types of technologies; and so on. While my formulation grew out of fieldwork, my subsequent research offered only modest support for it. I learned that managers had other ends to maximize than efficient production and they sometimes sacrificed efficiency for political and personal ends.“

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— Charles Perrow American sociologist 1925 - 2019

Charles Perrow, in "This Week’s Citation Classic." in: CC, Nr. 14. April 6, 1981 (online at garfield.library.upenn.edu)
Comment:
The other two 1967 publications were Paul R. Lawrence & Jay W. Lorsch. Organization and environment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967, and James D. Thompson. Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
1980s and later

„The technique of management, in its human relationships, can be best described as the technique of handling or managing people, which should be based on a deep and enlightened human understanding. The technique of organization may be described as that of relating specific duties or functions in a completely coordinated scheme. This statement of the difference between managing and organizing clearly shows their intimate relationship. It also shows, which is our present purpose, that the technique of organizing is inferior, in logical order, to that of management. It is true that a sound organizer may, because of temperamental failings, be a poor manager, but on the other hand it is inconceivable that a poor organizer may ever make a good manager… The prime necessity in all organization is harmonious relationships based on integrated interests, and, to this end, the first essential is an integrated and harmonious relationship in the duties, considered in themselves.“

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— James D. Mooney American businessman 1884 - 1957

Quelle: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 14-15; As cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 197-8

„The Management of Innovation (1961) [by Tom Burns and George M. Stalker is]… the first major attempt to deal with the nature of organization-environment relations and identify the types of organizational structure and managerial practices that are appropriate for different environmental condition. Introduced the mechanistic-organic polarity (never a dichotomy) to the management lexicon.“

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— Daniel A. Wren American business theorist 1932

Quelle: "Most influential management books of the 20th Century," 2001, p. 224.

„If we now reintroduce the conception of the complex organization as an open system subject to criteria of rationality, we are in a position to speculate about some dynamic properties of organizations.“

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— James D. Thompson American sociologist 1920 - 1973

Quelle: Organizations in Action, 1967, p. 11

„Quality management is a systematic way of guaranteeing that organized activities happen the way they are planned.“

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— Philip B. Crosby Quality guru 1926 - 2001

Quelle: Quality Is Free, 1977, p. 22

„So the thing I object to about government isn't its organizational feature. Organization has to be accomplished. It is the coercive nature of government organization. My argument is that we can organize better without coercion.“

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— Robert LeFevre American libertarian businessman 1911 - 1986

Rampart Institute, (Society for Libertarian Life edition), from 1977 speech, p. 8.
Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)

„Given the five parts of the organization - operating core, strategic apex, middle line, technostructure, and support staff - we may now ask how they all function together. In fact, we cannot describe the one way they function together, for research suggests that the linkages are varied and complex. The parts of the organization are joined together by different flows - of authority, of work material, of information, and of decision processes“

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— Henry Mintzberg Canadian busines theorist 1939

themselves informational
Quelle: The structuring of organizations (1979), p. 35

„We are organization watchers in our role as citizens. Increasing attention has been ﬁxed in recent years upon the functioning of society’s organizations: its large corporations and its governments. Hence this could also be described as a book for Everyman–for it proposes a way of thinking about organizational issues that concern us all.“

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— Herbert A. Simon American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist 1916 - 2001

Simon (1975, p. ix); As cited in Stefano Franchi(2006) " Herbert simon, anti-philosopher http://cleinias.org/sites/default/files/Simon-anti-Philosopher-preprint.pdf." Computing and Philosophy. p. 34.
1960s-1970s

„The concept of a system is not a simple or unique one. There are many different kinds of systems, and different systems may be organized and operated in different ways. As individuals we all belong to some social system, we participate in an economic system, we are the product of several educational systems, and we are members of one or more family systems. In a similar fashion, the equipment of which physical systems are made may be members of many other systems, such as electrical, mechanical, sensing, actuating, energy, materials, and/or information systems. One of the challenges to the person who engineers a system is to find the many alternative ways in which the function, the operation, and/or the equipment of concern and interest may be considered, understood, and made to perform most effectively.“

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— Harold Chestnut American engineer 1917 - 2001

Quelle: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), Systems Engineering Methods (1967), p. 1: First paragraph of Ch. 1. The Environment for System Engineering Methods

„Consider, for example, the mechanical precision with which many of our institutions are expected to operate. Organizational life is often routinized with the precision demanded of clockwork. People are frequently expected to arrive at work at a given time, perform a predetermined set of activities, rest at appointed hours, and then resume their tasks until work is over. In many organizations, one shift of workers replaces another in methodical fashion so that work can continue uninterrupted twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. Often, the work is very mechanical and repetitive. Anyone who has observed work in the mass-production factory or in any of the large “office factories” processing paper forms such as insurance claims, tax returns, or bank checks will have noticed the machine-like way in which such organizations operate. They are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of machines.“

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— Gareth Morgan, buch Images of Organization

Quelle: Images of Organization (1986), p. 20; As cited in as Vivien Martin -(2003) Leading change in health and social care. p. 157: About the organization as machine:

„The history of organization theory contrasts with the history of managerial thought. When people began to compose texts about organized activities, between 2,000 and 3,000 years before the Christian era (BCE), they focused on managerial practices rather than on organizations as such. Several writers proposed general principles for managerial practice before 1000 BCE, so one can say that theories about managing have existed for at least 3000 years. However, these writings often said nothing about the organizational contexts in which managing was to occur. When the writers did make statements about organizations, they did not generalize. They wrote about specific organizations.“

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— William H. Starbuck American academic 1934

Quelle: "The Origins of Organizational Theory," 2005, p. 143

„As we look around the organizational world we begin to see that it is possible to identify different species of organization in different kinds of environments. Just as we ﬁnd polar bears in arctic regions, camels in deserts, and alligators in swamps, we notice that certain species of organization are better ‘‘adapted’’ to speciﬁc environmental conditions than others. We ﬁnd that bureaucratic organizations tend to work most effectively in environments that are stable or protected in some way and that very different species are found in more competitive and turbulent regions, such as the environments of high-tech ﬁrms in the aerospace and microelectronics industries.“

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— Gareth Morgan, buch Images of Organization

Quelle: Images of Organization (1986), p. 39; As cited in as Vivien Martin -(2003) Leading change in health and social care. p. 157: About the organization as organism.

„The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced.“

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— Herbert Spencer English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist 1820 - 1903

The Development Hypothesis (1852)
Kontext: The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect... Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can it be said — Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists.

„The metaphor suggests that different environments favor different species of organizations based on different methods of organizing and that congruence with the environment is the key to success.“

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— Gareth Morgan, buch Images of Organization

Quelle: Images of Organization (1986), p. 35 (Morgan, 1998)

„The organizational design is the responsibility of the CEO, and the designer's role is to act as midwife to aid in the rebirth of the organization.“

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— Kenneth D. Mackenzie American management consultant 1937

Kenneth D. Mackenzie (1986), Organizational design: the organizational audit and analysis technology. p. 154

„Management has a design and operation function, as does engineering. The design is usually done under the heading of organization. It should be noted first that the performance of a group of people is a strong function of the capabilities of the individuals and a rather weak function of the way they are organized. That is, good people do a fairly good job under almost any organization and a somewhat better one when the organization is good. Poor talent does a poor job with a bad organization, but it is still a poor job no matter what the organization. Repeated reorganizations are noted in groups of individuals poorly suited to their function, though no amount of good organization will give good performance. The best architectural design fails with poor bricks and mortar. But the payoff from good organization with good people is worthwhile.“

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— Robert E. Machol American systems engineer 1917 - 1998

Quelle: System Engineering (1957), p. 514; As cited in: Joseph E. Kasser (2010) " Seven systems engineering myths and the corresponding realities http://www.synergio.nl/media/59286/7_myths_of_se.pdf"

Gareth Morgan

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