Organizational Autonomy

The third part of this book, from Chaps. 11 – 14 , examines how Barnard developed his theory of organization and management after he published his major publication, The Functions of the Executive. In fact, he published his second book, Organization and Management, in 1948, in which he attempted to develop his theory. This chapter focuses on how Barnard developed his theory of organization; it chooses and examines three papers from Organization and Management. The first paper, “Concepts of Organization,” responds to some criticisms raised by a book review; it explains precisely how a formal organization is composed of and integrated by diverse individuals’ contributions. In particular, customers’ activities become integral parts of formal organization, as well as those of employees. The second paper, “On Planning for World Government,” and the third paper, “Functions and Pathology of Status Systems in Formal Organization,” add two new concepts of organization, namely lateral organization and status system, respectively. These two concepts are closely related to the argument of organizational autonomy. Barnard suggested that an organization is basically a whole and independent entity, and that it has its own autonomy. Therefore, it is basically impossible for executives and executive organizations to control and dominate an organization completely. Barnard explored how to manage an organization by taking into account organizational autonomy. Thus, this chapter aims to consider how Barnard searched for a new method of managing an organization on the basis of organizational autonomy.