Groups are a fundamental part of the business world. Yet, as companies continue to expand internationally, a major challenge lies in promoting effective communication among employees who work in varying time zones. Global expansion often requires group collaboration through computer systems. Computer-mediated groups lead to different communicative…

Following recent thinking that sees organizations' structures as dependent on their environments, the authors consider characteristics of institutional sectors that affect the organizations arising within them. They first point out problems in present models relating organizations to their environments and discuss several "forerunners"…

A model for the personal responsibility group is presented. Each person in the group chooses goals based on personal perspectives and is not subordinate to an authority or to the group. Personal responsibility for actions and decisions is taken by each group member. (RC)

Authority-task problems are organizational problems created by inconsistencies between the task process system and both the authority system and the formal hierarchy of offices. A new theory is used to develop a model that predicts how an administrator responds to an authority-task problem. (Author/IRT)

This essay reviews major trends in methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of organizations since the mid-sixties and espouses the political analysis of organizations, a position representing a middle ground between comparative structuralism and the loosely coupled systems approach. This position emphasizes micropolitics as well as…

Information on the development and testing of a model of spatial diffusion and adoption of an agricultural innovation is presented. The data concern the practice of artificial insemination of cattle in southern Sweden. The model is intended to predict the time at which adoption occurred in terms of the time at which the innovation became available…

A theoretical framework for mapping school political life is developed which distinguishes elite, bureaucratic, coalitional, and participant types of school political organizations. The framework provides tools for analyzing and comparing patterns of political behavior within and across school political behavior settings. Definitions and…