Contingency and choice in the shaping of organisational structures and cultures

Sociologists like Merton, Selznick and Gouldner raised problems about the practical functioning of bureaucracies in general. Other researchers have raised doubts about the universally relevant prescriptions of the kind suggested by Fayol and others. The classical administrative writers offered universally applicable guiding principles on the best vertical and horizontal span of hierarchies, the best degree of specialisation, formalisation, centralisation, delegation and the like. However, the contingency approach to the design of the official control aspects of organisational structures, which has grown in popularity in organisation theory since the late 1950s, suggests, instead, that managements tend to seek the most appropriate shape of organisation to achieve their purposes given prevailing situational contingencies.