School of the contingency
the school of the contingency tries to give an account of the way in which the organizations are structured by studying the influence of the variables of context on the characteristics of the organizations.
Principles
One of the power station proposals of the school of the contingency, is that the environmental factors would make contingent the structures of the organization. Thus, contrary to the Taylorism which engages in normative research of the good organization “in oneself”, Henri Mintzberg, the principal one representing school of the contingency, affirms that the structure is related to the nature of the environment, although it is not it in a mechanical or deterministic way. The structure also depending on the goals that the leaders fix themselves. Consequently, the internal regulating mechanisms of an organization must be as varied as the environment with which it must compose.
Two concepts emergent: the adjustment , to explain the report/ratio of the company to its environment and that of coherence to describe the inner working of the organization. The models are thus structured around two units of variables:
- external environment , i.e. the system socio-policy in the broad sense, customers, suppliers… ,
- coherence interns system . On the latter point, Mintzberg considers that it is coherence between the subsystems which are organized to maintain certain characteristics of the organization which allows its regulation.
To study the organizations, it is necessary to take account of the Facteurs of contingency, the Système of goals and the relations of To be able.
- According to Mintzberg, the first variables to be taken into account are relating to the structural design: the division and the coordination of work between operators and the various units. Coordination is done by means of mechanisms formal or resting on the interpersonal relationships.
- Comes then the contingent factors, i.e. which do not result from an intentional influence. They are the size and the age of the organization, the Marché, the environment…
- the goals separate in two categories. The goals of system are relating to the organization itself or its members. The goals of mission aim at the customers or the products. If the goals do not cause tensions between the actors, they known as will be integrated. In the contrary case one will speak about conflict goals. Lastly, according to whether it is possible to determine if a goal is reached or not, it will be regarded as operational or not.
- the capacity can be held by external actors (the owners of the company, who do not manage it themselves, the board of directors) or by internal actors of the company.
Organisational configurations
According to determinant variables - structural design, factors of contingency, goals and capacity -, Mintzberg defines five configurations of organization. The organizations which fall under several configurations are known as hybrids. The configurations defined by Mintzberg are the following ones.- the autocracy or entrepreneurial configuration . The autocracy is an organization placed under the personal authority of a single actor. The person who controls this organization is often the founder and the owner. The decisions are centralized in the hands of this only actor.
- the Bureaucracy mechanist . max Weber uses the term of “Bureaucracy” to indicate the organizations in which work is strongly divided on the levels horizontal and vertical. The standardization of the processes is important, the workers are qualified little, etc the most typical case is that of the company of assembly where work is done with the chain. The goals of system are prevalent. The capacity is localized within the hierarchical top and in the analysts of the Technostructure. The name, initially used by max Weber, was taken again by Mintzberg which drew several alternatives from them.
- the instrument : the organization is an instrument between the hands of the owners who hold most of the capacity.
- the closed system : the hierarchy interns and the technostructure share the capacity.
- the divisionnalized structure is characterized by an important departmentalization.
- the adhocratie . The “ad hoc” expression contained in the adhocratie term indicates that the operators work in order to answer the specific requests of the customers by seeking the most adapted solutions. They are goals of mission.
- professional configuration . The key word “professional” indicates that the personnel of these organizations is very qualified. The organization is structured on competences of its operators, who improve them continuously.
- the missionary . The fifth configuration does not appear in the case study. Its principal characteristic is the devotion of its members to a cause. The goals of mission prevail rather than the goals of system.
During the analysis of an organisational unit, one can find several configuration-types, in the form of
- Juxtaposition when two configurations are localized in parts different from the organization;
- Superposition where one finds the traces of the two configurations in all the organization.
Limits
One of the principal limits of the theories of the contingency, is that the strategic behavior of the actors, their autonomy is forsaken there with the profit of an analysis directed towards the group. In other words, they do not make it possible to include/understand how the actors can be at the same time those which build the system, ensure a certain permanence to him, and allow him to evolve/move. In addition, the postulate of the adaptability of the system does not give well an account of the built character of the organization, he does not explain the emergence of structured forms, and their survival, otherwise than by the implicit recourse to assumptions of adaptability close to a certain social Darwinism.
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