The Procrustean Bed of the Rational Organization

Abstract

Mainstream public organization theory is still centered on the rational model of organization. This model remains influential despite persistent criticism (cf. Alvesson and Deetz, 1996; Bekke, 1995; Davis, 1996; Denhardt, 1993; De Geus, 1989; Schipper, 1993).² Fischer and Sirianni argue, for instance,

‘In spite of the voluminous literature on the dysfunctions and inefficiencies of the rational model, as well as the attempts to supply a theoretical alternative, mainstream theory is still fundamentally linked to the assumptions of the rational model.’ (1984: 9)

Although the limits of this paradigm have already been clearly shown in more than half a century of organization studies, the rational model of organization retains ideological power (cf. Davis, 1996; Pringle, 1989). People’s views of how organizations actually do work and how they ‘ought’ to work are still filtered through this model and it becomes in a sense a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever modifications or revisions might need to be made to the model it is assumed there is a core of truth to it and this makes it difficult to move outside it (cf. Fischer and Sirianni, 1984; Pringle, 1989; Reed, 1996; White, 1990).

Part of my Ph.D. thesis on meanings of rationality in the Anglo-American discourse on public organization. The author would like to thank Gary Marshall, Cor Lammers, and Hendrik Wagenaar for their insightful comments upon earlier versions of this article

In the literature one finds references to ‘the rational organization model’, ‘the rational organization conception’, ‘the rational paradigm’, ‘the rational man theory of organization’, and so on. Although paradigms, models, theories and conceptions are not one and the same thing, I will follow common practice in the field and use these terms interchangeably