ABSTRACT
As purposive entities, complex organizations are constantly being evaluated, both by elements of the task environment and by components of the organizations themselves. Assessment inevitably involves some standard of desirability against which actual or conceivable effects of causal actions can be evaluated. People, and organizations, do make choices in multidimensional situations, using some sort of calculus which facilitates preferential ranking of effects regardless of the dimension on which they occur. In classical economic theory the monetary scale plays this role, allowing the economic man to compare all possible effects in terms of a common denominator. Organizations assess their own components in terms of past efficiency when technologies are perfected and task environments stable or well buffered. If those conditions are met only reasonably well, organizations seek to account for interdependence and assess each unit in efficiency terms.
