The Context of Organization Structures

Aspects of organizational context that have been held to be relevant to organizational structure were examined. Seven primary concepts of organizational context, viz.: origin and history, ownership and control, size, charter, technology, location and dependence on other organizations, were analyzed and operationally defined scales constructed. These were used as independent variables in a multivariate regression analysis to predict three underlying dimensions of organization structure previously established. The size of the correlations obtained on a sample of 46 organizations in the English Midlands (0.75 with structuring of activities using size and technology as predictors; 0.75 with concentration of authority using dependence and location as predictors; 0.57 with line control of workflow, using the operating variability scale of charter as a predictor) indicates that these aspects of context are salient for structure. The framework of contextual and structural variables is seen as making possible processual studies on a much more rigorous comparative basis than before.