Week 3 Assignment - Kerry Etheridge

Social Networking and Organizational Design

The first thing that struck me about this article was its publication date. 1983 is years (even decades) before the advent of what we today think of as "social media" or "social networking." This made me curious to learn just what the authors meant by a social network and how, in their opinion, it relates to organizational design performance. I did not have long to wait. In the second page of the article, Pearce and David expand upon Schuler's (1975) claim that an organization consists of an interpersonal network that, though relatively stable, can impact the social system that surrounds the organization through both information exchange and influence relationships (1983, p. 437). They explain their hypothesis so succinctly that I find it difficult to describe it here without quoting the entire article. So instead, I will try to draw comparisons between their approach and some of the techniques covered in our reading this week.

As Goold and Campbell put it so eloquently, "Organizational structures rarely result from systematic methodical planning. Rather, they evolve overtime...shaped more by politics than by policies" (2002, p. 5). If you read further, the inference is that there are many non-scientific factors that can contribute to the success or lack of success of any organizational structure. When people are involved (and what organization does not involve people?), there will always exist the propensity for emotion and human nature to enter into things. In fact, I would argue that it is an eventuality. For example, in their opening paragraph Goold and Campbell refer to "frustration," "turf wars," and "lack of managerial attention," all human factors, as contributing to potential organizational design collapse (2002, p. 5).

By way of comparison, Pearce and David do refer to familiar organizational components such as "work teams," "departments," and "divisions" (1983, p. 437). All of these elements were included in this week's readings as key components of various models of organizational structure. They also talk about vertical and horizontal hierarchies. But their theory goes beyond the organizational chart, the communications strategy and the environmental factors that create a successful organizational design. They speak very candidly about the impact that informal social networks within an organization can have and how ignoring their contribution to an organization's structure is almost a sure-fire way of guaranteeing the failure of that structure on some level.

It was interesting to note that the authors were not the first researchers to examine this theory. In fact, their paper cites studies by researchers going as far back as 1966. Most of these past studies took place in the 1970s and used nine group structural properties that are descriptive of both groups (connectedness, centrality, etc.) and individuals (stars, isolates, and liaisons). Still, Pearce and David appear to be disappointed by the fact that the number of studies is too small and the diversity of the research settings too limited for these studies to be conclusive (1983, p. 440).

In addition to the shortcomings pointed out by the authors, I perceive that the studies were done on only two types of organizational design: mechanistic and organic. The authors' definition of a mechanistic design seems to most closely approximate what we have come to know as a functional design; since their only definition of organic is that it is the opposite of mechanistic, I can only assume that it resembles a divisional structure (1983, p. 438). But what about the other types of organizational designs, such as the matrix model or one of the many emerging models as described by Nohria (1995, p. 8)? It would be interesting to do a literature search and follow Pearce and David's journey to the end of their story.

References

Goold, M. & Campbell, A. (2002, March). Do you have a well-designed organization? Harvard Business Review.

Nohria, N. (1995, June 30). Note on organizational structure. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Pearce, J. A.,II, & David, F. R. (1983). A social network approach to organizational design-performance. The Academy of Management Review, 8(3), pp. 436-444. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.usc.edu/stable/257832

Schuler, R. S. (1975). Role perceptions, satisfaction and performance: A partial reconciliation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, pp. 683-687.