The Comparative Description of Organizations: A Research Note and Invitation

A major barrier to the cumulation of knowledge about organizations, to effective theory construction, and to the accumulation of data collected by various research teams stems from the fact that each investigator utilizes a different set of variables, which means that organizations of the same type and even the same organizations may be described in different ways. An attempt is made to overcome this problem and an invitation is issued to organizational scholars with various interests to participate in the effort. A modified Delphi technique has been used as a way of identifying those characters or variables that have the highest common relevance to diverse theories and dimensions, and for ranking those characters in terms of their general relevance and utility. A set procedure has been established for those scholars who wish to participate in this effort.