COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONSparticipants sometimes bring widely varying ex-
pectations to the same organization. Differentia-
tion is thus a centrifugal force threatening the
coherence of social units. Integration, by contrast,
refers to procedures for maintaining coherence,
as diverse roles are linked and activities coordinat-
ed to sustain an organization as a coherent entity.
Examples of integrative processes include the hold-
ing of weekly departmental meetings or the circu-
lation of inter office memos.
Differentiation increases organizational com-
plexity because it increases the extent and nature
of specialization (Blau 1972). Complexity increas-
es with the number of different components, and
may be horizontal (tasks spread over many roles or
units), vertical (many levels in a hierarchy of au-
thority), or spatial (many operating sites). Com-
plexity also increases when tasks are grouped by
product/market (soap, paper products, or foods)
or by function (finance, production, or marketing).
Problems of coordination are present for any
activity system, but especially for a complex one.
Many concepts used to describe organization struc-
ture involve alternative processes used in attempts
to achieve integration. One scheme, for example,
identified five coordinating mechanisms: direct
supervision, three forms of standardization, and
mutual adjustment (Mintzberg 1983). With direct
supervision, or simple control, decision making is
highly centralized: persons at the top of a hierar-
chy make decisions that lower level personnel
simply carry out. This coordination pattern was
prevalent in preindustrial organizations, and to-
day is especially likely within small organizations
(Edwards 1979).
Coordination also can be attained through
standardizing work processes, skills, or outputs.
Work processes may be standardized through for-
malization, that is, the development of rules and
procedures. Examples include rules for process-
ing orders, for assembling and packaging prod-
ucts, or for conducting screening interviews for
clients. A formalized organization may appear
decentralized, since few explicit commands are
given, and lower-level participants have freedom
in making decisions within the rules. The rules
may, however, be so restrictive as to leave little
room for discretion. A variant on process stand-
ardization is technical control; here, rules and
procedures—and thereby coordination and con-
trol—are built into the design of machinery, as in
an assembly line. Most worker discretion is elimi-
nated by the structure of the technical system, and
what remains is centralized in the upper echelons
of the organization.Standardization of skills involves considerable
training and indoctrination of personnel, so that
participants will carry out organizational policies
with minimal oversight. Organizations employing
large numbers of professionals are likely to rely on
this coordination strategy (Von Glinow 1988). Pro-
fessional participants enjoy considerable autono-
my in making decisions, but their prior socializa-
tion sets most decision premises for them.By producing products with standard proper-
ties, subunits of an organization are able to work
independently of one another; if they use each
other’s outputs, the standards tell them what to
anticipate. For example, large clothing firms pro-
duce massive runs of identical garments, and thus
the various departments within firms know pre-
cisely what to expect from one another as they
follow daily routines. Similar purposes are served
by precise tolerances for parts used in manufactur-
ing machinery and information systems designed
to permit easy sharing of data within offices.In small, young organizations, coordination is
achieved by the simple mutual adjustment of per-
sonnel to one another. This form of coordination
is also found in larger organizations working on
complex, novel tasks, for which innovation is at a
premium, such as consulting firms or research and
development units. In such organizations, the ac-
tivities of participants are reciprocally contingent,
rather than sequentially ordered as in an assembly
line. Formal structural devices have been advocat-
ed as ways of facilitating mutual adjustment under
complex circumstances, such as integrating man-
agers and project teams into matrix-management
structures.Standardization, bureaucratization, and for-
malization have done much to enable organiza-
tions to perform repetitive work efficiently. The
same phenomena contribute to some well-known
organizational pathologies; in particular, these co-
ordination devices tend to reduce flexibility. In the
1990s, organizations struggled to develop less rig-
id structures for accomplishing work. Efforts to