Philip Selznick Quote

The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no abstract plan or pattern can—or may, if it is to be useful—exhaustively describe an empirical totality. At the same time, that which is not included in the abstract design (as reflected, for example, in a a staff and-line organization chart) is vitally relevant to the maintenance and development of the formal system itself.


p. 25 - "Foundations of the Theory of Organization," 1948


The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no...

The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no...

The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no...

The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no...