ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the interdependence of facade and interior, and discusses the problems of generalizing about their intertwined phases in the organization's ongoing action. Systematic focus on the terms "formal" and "informal" as applied to organizations, began with Barnard's theory in 1938, and was fortified with data the next year by Roethlisberger and Dickson, who talked especially of informal activity among workers. Accepting the terms "formal" and "informal" as helpful labels for the two poles, the chapter shows that they are held together by meetings, unofficially ordered or granted departures from the formal, transitional roles, prefigured justifications, the role of the "two-way funnel," and the eventual formalizing of sound or inescapable practices that may have earlier been taboo. The ties between formal and informal come out in the problems arising from executive vacations in many of the middle-sized and larger firms. Two cases from Milo show the interplay of theory and social demand on vacations.
