Managing Organizational Demands: Avoiding Influence as an Organizational Response

Just as influencing organizations can develop prior estimates of their probable success and use these to guide their behavior, so can the focal organization. To forestall a loss of autonomy and to remove some of the contextual constraints on behavior, the focal organization may take actions to reduce the probability of being subject to

Managing the Conditions of Social Control in Organizations

While balancing conflicting demands will forestall some problems of lost autonomy, perhaps the most effective way of avoiding the constraints of external demands is to..avoid the conditions which demand compliance in the first place. In Chapter Three, we discussed a model of the social control of organizations and presented some conditions which would tend

Managing and Avoiding Dependence of Organizations

The strategies we have discussed for avoiding influence may be effective in avoiding the influence of relatively less powerful groups. Such strategies are less likely to work when dealing with powerful interests controlling critical organizational dependencies. General Motors’ power over its automotive suppliers was great enough that it could not only make demands about

Using Merger to Cope with Organizational Interdependence

One of the problems faced by organizations interdependent with other organizations is that the exchanges required for maintaining operations are uncertain and potentially unstable. Coping with organizational environments requires stabilizing them somehow or, as Thompson (1967) has suggested, reducing the uncertainty confronting the organization. When the conditions of the environment are mediated by social

Altering Organizational Interdependence: Patterns of Vertical Mergers

The merger data used for this analysis were drawn from the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Report on Large Mergers in Manufacturing and Mining, 1948-1969 (1970) and were first analyzed by Pfeifer (1972). Mergers of manufacturing companies with other manufacturing firms and mergers of petroleum refiners with producers of gas and oil were examined, a

Mergers Within the Same Industry: Reducing Competitive Uncertainty

Some industrial mergers are made between organizations in the same industry. Such within-industry mergers can represent either attempts to gain control over organizations with which one does business, as there are with in-industry transactions, or attempts to gain control over competitor organizations to increase the firm’s dominance in exchange relationships. Because of the ‘

Diversification: Determining Interorganizational Dependence

Diversification is similar to merger in our analysis of organization-environment interaction. The subject, primarily studied by economists, has not been viewed in the broader context of an organizational response to resource interdependence. One of the most comprehensive examinations of diversification was Gort’s (1962) study for the National Bureau of Economic Research. Gort examined diversification

Altering Organizational Interdependence: Organizational Growth

The acquisition of organizations accomplished through merger is only one instance of organizational growth. Another method of growth, of course, is to expand present operations through direct capital investment. In this section we will discuss organizational growth, a more general concept than merger. We argue that growth, whether accom- plished by merger .ox. direct

The Negotiated Environment: Structures of Interorganizational Action

The most direct method for controlling dependence is to control the source of that dependence. One is not always in a position to achieve control over dependence through acquisition and ownership, however. Mergers require resources and may be proscribed in various circumstances. Courts can not merge with police, nor can district attorneys directly merge

The Negotiated Environment: Normative Coordination of Interdependence

One simple and direct way to regulate behavior is to generate common expectations for all individuals operating within a certain set of cir-cumstances. A norm is developed, and social actors are socialized to behave as prescribed by the norm. If most actors conform to normative expectations, then it becomes feasible for stable and regular

Interorganizational Cooperation: The Case of Joint Ventures

If communication among organizations is a necessary ingredient for achieving coordinated behavior, then vehicles which facilitate information exchange are likely to arise in the organizational field. One such mechanism for achieving coordination among organizations through a sharing of information and resource commitments is the joint venture. The term “joint venture.” sometimes also referred to as

Patterns of Joint Venture Activity

Considerations of uncertainty reduction and interdependence management should not only permit the analysis of the number of joint ventures across industries, but, in a formulation similar to that used to analyze mergers, should explain patterns of joint venture activity as well. In a study of joint ventures among manufacturing and oil and gas exploration

Cooptation: The Use of Interlocking Boards of Directors

Joint ventures represent, of course, only one form of interorganiza- tional linkage; and involving a partial pooling of assets, they are only slightly less powerful interfirm linkages than merger. Somewhat less involving are the placing of representatives from environmental groups or organizations on advisory committees or boards of directors. Although interlocking directorates do not

The Negotiated Environment: Hospital Boards of Directors

There are some problems with the previous analysis of corporate,, boards which are not present in a subsequent study of the size, function, and composition of hospital boards of directors (Pfeffer, 1973). The analysis of corporate boards considered only a few dimensions of composition, such as the proportion of insiders and the proportion of

Organized Coordination of Interdependence: Associations, Coalitions, and Cartels

We have noted repeatedly that the development of tacit coordination among interdependent organizations is likely only when there are few organizations that must monitor each other. Even various interfirm linkages such as joint ventures and interlocking directorates can effect-lively coordinate interdependence only when there are a relatively few large participants in the market. When

Controlling Interdependence: Rationalization of Political Choice

There are, of course, some important differences between politically constructed environments and those which emerge from other methods of managing interdependence. In political decision contexts, a third party is involved in the situation, with discretion to act in ways which affect the interdependent organization but with no direct stake in the outcome. The decision

Controlling Interdependence: Organizational Legitimacy

Because organizations are only components of a larger social system and depend upon that system’s support for their continued existence, organizational goals and activities must be legitimate or of worth to that larger social system. “Legitimation is the process whereby an organization justifies to a peer or superordinate system its right to exist, that

Regulation: State Management of the Economic Environment

While organizational survival is enhanced by legitimacy, it is also enyj hanced by economic viability, especially in the case of private organi-zations. Classical economics suggests that economic viability is bouncka up with conditions such as low-cost production and meeting market demand better than the competition. This is not invariably the case. In large segments

Controlling Interdependence: The Organization as a Political Actor

Implicit in the observation that organizations attempt to obtain advantages from government regulators is the notion that formal organizations-have interests and make demands on government just as individual citizens do. There is little doubt that organizations have been heavily involved in American government and American politics for a long time and will continue to

A Model of Environmental Effects

There are a variety of possible mechanisms by which the organization’s context can come to influence its structure and actions. While the environment (or, more correctly, actions of others in the environment) may present the contingencies that create problems for the organization, those actions must be enacted and considered by organizational members. In Chapter