ABSTRACT
Flexible streamlining vis-à-vis the permanent debate It may not be an accident that organization theorists have always considered the services – the professional services, in particular – as complex organizations (Perrow 1986). It can even be established at this point in time that this does not exclusively apply to the professional services any more: all other services in and around the public domain have also become quite complex. As our previous arguments have shown, so-called flexible streamlining must certainly have affected their so-called objective complexity. The latter is not only related to the internal division of labour but also to the number of management layers that has evolved, not to mention the current need for a formalized external accountability (Mintzberg 1983: 153).
