Philip Selznick - Technical Quotes

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To institutionalize is to infuse with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand. The prizing of social machinery beyond its technical role is largely a reflection of the unique way in which it fulfills personal or group needs. Whenever individuals become attached to an organization or a way of doing things as persons rather than as technicians, the result is a prizing of the device for its own sake. From the standpoint of the committed person, the organization is changed from an expendable tool into a valued source of personal satisfaction.

Philip Selznick

Organisations are technical instruments; designed as means to definite goals... they are expendable. Institutions... may be partly engineered, but they have also a natural dimension. They are the products of interaction and adaptation; they become the receptacles of group idealism; they are less readily expendable.

Philip Selznick