Burns and Stalker
CHAPTER 8
Burns and Stalker, The Management of Innovation*
. . . The utility of the notions of “mechanistic” and “organic” management systems resides largely in their being related as dependent variables to the rate of “environmental” change. “Environmental,” in this connection, refers to the technological basis of production and to the market situation. . . . The increasing rate of technological change characteristic of the last generation could plausibly be regarded as a function of fundamental changes in the relationship of production to consumption. If the form of management is properly to be seen as dependent on the situation the concern is trying to meet, it follows that there is no single set of principles for “good organization,” an ideal type of management system which can serve as a model to which administrative practice should, or could in time, approximate. It follows also that there is an overriding management task in first interpreting correctly the market and technological situation, in terms of its instability or of the rate at which conditions are changing, and then designing the management system appropriate to the conditions, and making it work. “Direction,” as I have labelled this activity, is the distinctive task of managers-in-chief. . . . For the individual, much of the importance of the difference between mechanistic and organic systems lies in the extent of his commitment to the working organization. Mechanistic systems (namely “bureaucracies”) define his functions, together with the methods, responsibilities, and powers appropriate to them; in other words, however, this means that boundaries are set. That is to say, in being told what he has to attend to, and how, he is also told what he does not have to bother with, what is not his affair, what is not expected of him, what he can post
*Excerpted with permission of the publisher from The Management of Innovation, by T. Burns and G. M. Stalker, 1961, London: Tavistock. 103
104
Burns and Stalker, The Management of Innovation*
. . . The utility of the notions of “mechanistic” and “organic” management systems resides largely in their being related as dependent variables to the rate of “environmental” change. “Environmental,” in this connection, refers to the technological basis of production and to the market situation. . . . The increasing rate of technological change characteristic of the last generation could plausibly be regarded as a function of fundamental changes in the relationship of production to consumption. If the form of management is properly to be seen as dependent on the situation the concern is trying to meet, it follows that there is no single set of principles for “good organization,” an ideal type of management system which can serve as a model to which administrative practice should, or could in time, approximate. It follows also that there is an overriding management task in first interpreting correctly the market and technological situation, in terms of its instability or of the rate at which conditions are changing, and then designing the management system appropriate to the conditions, and making it work. “Direction,” as I have labelled this activity, is the distinctive task of managers-in-chief. . . . For the individual, much of the importance of the difference between mechanistic and organic systems lies in the extent of his commitment to the working organization. Mechanistic systems (namely “bureaucracies”) define his functions, together with the methods, responsibilities, and powers appropriate to them; in other words, however, this means that boundaries are set. That is to say, in being told what he has to attend to, and how, he is also told what he does not have to bother with, what is not his affair, what is not expected of him, what he can post
*Excerpted with permission of the publisher from The Management of Innovation, by T. Burns and G. M. Stalker, 1961, London: Tavistock. 103
104