INLS 131
Management of Information Agencies
Fall 1999

Getting Ready for Class of Oct. 18, 1999

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE CHANGE

EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION

Although I've heard a few pleas for no reading assignment over the break, I'm going to assign one short reading. I think we need to keep up our focus on a theme we started with the first class -- that of the need for the manager to understand how the organization must change with changes in the environment. We have read and discussed changes in the external environment and how they impact an organization. The reading I assign is an older one (originally 1972, but reprinted) and it deals with changes in the internal environment and how these changes affect the structure of an organization. I had given you a diagram from the article earlier but we didn't spend enough time on it so here's the complete (but short) article:

Greiner, Larry E., "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow," (first published in Harvard Business Review, vol. 50(1), 1972, reprinted in Developing Managerial Skills in Organizational Behavior Eds.: L.A. Maniero and C.L. Tromley. 2nd ed. Prentice Hall, 1994, pp. 322-329.

Pick an organization you're familiar with (perhaps one you've written about earlier) and see if you can determine where they are in the developmental sequence. How is it solving the particular "crisis" that confronts it? Does Greiner's model suggest a change in organizational structure or did it predict one?

Consider either the academic library or academic computing as presented by Joe Hewitt and John Oberlin respectively. What phase of growth would you say the organization you selected is in? Do you think the managerial style, focus, and structure are appropriate?