The structure of non‐industrial organizations

TLDR: In this article, the authors extend Woodward's findings from the industrial to the non-manufacturing sphere and show that structure does relate to task within the nonmanufacturing group, but that taken as a whole the structures of the non manufacturing group differ from all those Woodward found in manufacture.

Abstract: Organization structure is determined by the interaction of several variables. Woodward's work suggested that technology is one of the most important and this study attempts to extend her findings from the industrial to the non-manufacturing sphere. The results show that structure does relate to task within the non-manufacturing group — but that taken as a whole the structures of the non-manufacturing group differ from all those Woodward found in manufacture. Some of these differences are seen to derive from the relative simplicity of the non-manufacturing technology. Others can be traced to the operation of intervening variables.