ABSTRACT
Neither the systems characterization of the organization nor the various typologies which have been constructed have developed a wholly adequate model of the organization as a theoretical object. If the open-system model leaves us in doubt as to where the organization is, epistemologically (that is, what could be the logical boundary of an open system?), the typological approach may be said to have us in doubt as to what, epistemologically, the organization is: is it a structure of compliance, a variable of beneficiaries or some other, or combination of some other of the many characteristics which have been taken to distinguish types of organizations? When we recall that Haas et al. (1966, pp. 162–3) were able to delineate thirty-seven such characteristics, it becomes obvious that the inability of organization theorists to construct any coherent or consensual theoretical object of the organization is crucial.
