ABSTRACT
Uncertainty appears as the fundamental problem for complex organizations, and coping with uncertainty, as the essence of the administrative process. The process of administration may be thought of as providing boundaries within which organizational rationality becomes possible. In this view administration is a process of coping with uncertainty, but it is not merely the defensive absorption or blockage of uncertainty. Administration includes a more aggressive co-alignment aspect which keeps the organization at a nexus of several necessary streams of action. The relative importance of different uncertainties and the relative costs of offsetting or eliminating or avoiding them are matters to be estimated, by variable human agents. Complex organizations exist ultimately as agencies of their environments, acquiring resources in exchange for outputs and, in the final analysis, obtaining technologies from environments. Modem societies must also struggle with questions of developing and allocating human capacities for the administration of complex organizations.
