James D. Thompson

“Organizations in Action (1964) [was] a masterpiece on the behavior of organizations, incorporating an open-systems perspective to explain the influence of technology on the matter in which work systems are structured for task accomplishment.”

“The more sectors in which the organization subject to rationality norms is constrained; the more power the organization will seek over remaining sectors of its task environment... many constraints and unable to achieve power in other sectors of its task environment will seek to enlarge the task environment.”

“The incorporation of subsidiary competencies along with major missions is commonplace in organizations of all types and is not a major discovery. But our proposition is not an announcement of the fact; rather it attempts to indicate the in which domains are expanding”

“Organizations under norms of rationality seek to place their boundaries around those activities which if left to the task environment would be crucial contingencies.”

“When buffering, leveling, and forecasting do not protect their technical cores from environmental fluctuations, organizations under norms of rationality resort to rationing.”

“Under norms of rationality, organizations seek to anticipate and adapt to environmental changes which cannot be buffered or leveled.”

“Under norms of rationality, organizations seek to smooth out input and output transactions.”

“Under norms of rationality, organizations seek to buffer environmental influences by surrounding their technical cores with input and output components.”

“Under norms of rationality, organizations seek to seal off their core technologies from environmental influences.”

“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.”

“A central purpose of this book is to identify a framework which might link at important points several of the now independent approaches to the understanding of complex organizations.”