ABSTRACT
Any analytical approach to organizations focuses naturally on the methods used to perform the basic work of the organization. ese work methods are sometimes referred to as tasks or as organizational technology. e use of the term “technology” in this context does not imply highly sophisticated or complicated methods or equipment, but simply the techniques, whether simple or complex, employed to perform the organization’s work. Assembly line manufacturing, for example, is a basic organizational technology in which each worker performs a single specialized task on a product as it moves by on the assembly line, resulting in the nished product having been worked on by many specialized employees. If, instead, each worker assembled a complete product, performing all the various tasks necessary to nish the product, we would recognize that a dierent organizational technology was in use, even though the product was the same.
