Rational Organizational Theory

Theories have histories, and rational theories of organizations are no exception. Rational views of organizations dominated the early world of organizational development and leadership (mid-1800s to World War II) as well as the early study of organizational sociologists in Germany and America (pre-1950s). During these periods, organizations were largely viewed as “pure” forms of bureaucratic structure, complete with hierarchical authority, driven by goal specificity and rational understandings and formalization. Rationality refers not to the selection of goals but to their implementation as well as their technical and functional rationality that structures work activity with emphasis upon information, efficiency, optimization, implementation, and design.

Scientific management research became the main vehicle by which rational theories of organizations were applied to organizations. Its focus was to improve specific technical and skill actions of workers, time and space management, task analysis, and factory efficiency. Scientific management influenced education in similar ways, including grading and grouping processes, structuring of classrooms and administrative functions, and even curricular content and teaching.

Nevertheless, even as early as the 1930s, rational or closed views of organizations were being challenged, at first by those emphasizing social aspects of organizing such as Mary Parker Follett, and then later by those researching the influence of environments on organizing.

Subsequent thought and study over a four-decade period, starting with the human relations theory (in the late 1930s), through Herbert Simon's concept of satisficing (with strongest influence in the 1950s), and research on the nonrationality of internal processes and the influence of environments on organizational planning and function from the 1960s and on, did much to unravel the tight hold efficiency and closed systems played in rational theory.

Three challenges did the most to moderate the “rationality” in rational theory. First, the emerging field of industrial and organizational psychology, specifically the work of Karl Weick, worked to nuance rationality as sense making. Organizational design, communication, planning, and administrative decision making was not so linear but informed by creativity, improvisation, and enactment. Sense making was constructed and bootstrapped within organizations. Second, institutional theorists argued and then showed that rationality itself was framed by both broad and local (a) regulatory, (b) normative, and (c) mimetic processes. Finally, contingency and environmental organizational researchers documented the heavy influence of external pressures, resources, and forces on organizational process.

Contingency theory championed the view that the best way to organize is dependent on the context of the environment in which it must function. As that environment changes, organizations must adapt and alter their strategic plans to respond to those external constraints. This view challenged naive views of formal and closed systems. It dismissed the notion that organizational structure can be explained without reference to external constraints. “Contingencies” can be sporadic, intermittent, and unpredictable, and continue to challenge linear and systematic rationality.

However, noting the constraints or limits of rationality in organization did not itself replace rational explanations. Organizations still must attend to structuring their [Page 848]work in effective and efficient ways, and many of the early findings of rational theorists, even scientific management researchers, provide useful ways of doing so.

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