IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v11y1965i10pb217-b230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toward a Theory of Inter-Organizational Relations

Author

Listed:
  • William M. Evan

    (Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Abstract

Social science research has been concerned primarily with intra-organizational phenomena. The twin problems of theory and methodology have impeded research on inter-organizational phenomena. Merton's concept of the "role-set" is the point of departure for an analogous concept designated as the "organization-set." The unit of analysis is an organization or a class of organizations, referred to as the focal organization, and its interactions are mapped with the network of organizations in its environment, i.e., with elements of its organization-set. Seven dimensions of organization-sets are discussed: input vs. output organization-sets, comparative vs. normative reference organizations; size of the organization-set; concentration of input organizational resources; overlap in membership; overlap in goals and values; and boundary personnel. With the aid of these dimensions, hypotheses are formulated concerning the variable of autonomy in decision-making of the focal organization. Similar hypotheses--several of which are set forth--are needed for various inter-organizational processes, such as coordination, cooperation, competition, conflict, and amalgamation. Two methodological tools which may prove useful in empirical research on inter-organizational relations, graph theory and input-output analysis, are considered.

Suggested Citation

  • William M. Evan, 1965. "Toward a Theory of Inter-Organizational Relations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(10), pages 217-230, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:11:y:1965:i:10:p:b217-b230
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.11.10.B217
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.11.10.B217
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.11.10.B217?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amanda Murdie, 2014. "Scrambling for contact: The determinants of inter-NGO cooperation in non-Western countries," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 309-331, September.
    2. Gulzar, Laila & Henry, Beverly, 2005. "Interorganizational collaboration for health care between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(9), pages 1930-1943, November.
    3. Turker, Duygu, 2014. "Analyzing relational sources of power at the interorganizational communication system," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 509-517.
    4. Boyle, Brett A. & Dwyer, F. Robert, 1995. "Power, bureaucracy, influence, and performance: Their relationships in industrial distribution channels," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 189-200, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:11:y:1965:i:10:p:b217-b230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.