Mechanistic organisation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mechanistic organization is a term defined by T. Burns and G. M. Stalker to refer to bureaucratic organizations with stringent rules and rigid hierarchies. The differentiation of tasks, specialisation, departmentalisation, centralisation, standardisation, and formulation are their highest values and so is integration.

Though a practically impossible form of organisation, much of early organisations of the early 19th and late 20th centuries are more mechanistic.

C. Handy refers to such an organisation as the Apollo Organisation, with its greek temple figure, whilst the context of his analysis and of that of Burns and Stalker suggest that Mechanistic and Apollo Organisations are highly similar, but not necessarily the same.

This definition coincides with Max Weber's definition of Bureaucracy as the rational-legal form of effcient organisation, but organisations nowadays are being moved from this unitary form (U-Form) to a smaller decentralised unitaries, to form a multi-divisional structure (M-Form) either through mergers or division. This is the product of studies of O. E. Williamson.

A Mechanistic Organisation is the opposite of an Organic organisation or Organismic organisation.