Uncertainty, danger and organizational structure.

Abstract

Research on the relationship between organizational tasks and structure has conceptualized task as the modal work done by organizations or work groups. However, in this research, 36 individual organizational tasks, all performed by organizational members, were arrayed on uncertainty and danger, and the relationship to structure studied. When examined at this task level, clear relationships between uncertainty and danger and the structural variables were found. This research studied a large urban fire department, heretofore not a setting for organizational research. Fire departments provide unique opportunities to study tasks which vary in both uncertainty and danger. Moreover, the tasks are performed by the same personnel. Fire departments are also organized into almost identical subunits (fire stations); these "cookie cutter" units minimize variability between organizational subunits or work groups, thus highlighting variability associated with the various tasks they perform and revealing specific relationships between tasks and organizational structure. In essence, it was found that the formal properties of the organization were different when it performed routine and non-dangerous tasks from when it performed highly uncertain and dangerous tasks. The issue of structural vs. individual effects was investigated. This research indicated relationships between tasks and structure were not solely a matter of the phenomenological experience of respondents. Uncertainty and danger were highly correlated, each accounting for significant variation in structural variables. As uncertainty and danger increased, participation decision-making decreased, a polyarchic distribution of power emerged, and the total amount of control increased. Formalization and specialization decreased, while the need for training and process complexity (a variable created to address the interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of complexity) increased. Relationships were stronger when variations in tasks were the unit of analysis than when differences among fire station work groups were analyzed. The structural configuration of the fire department which emerged from examination of both routine/safe and highly uncertain and dangerous incidents was unlike the organic and mechanistic (bureaucratic) ideal types which constitute the extant theoretical models of organizational structure. Therefore a third form, the emergency model, is proposed to represent the structure found in settings in which variations in danger and emergency are factors in organizational tasks.