Mechanistic organisation

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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, specialization, departmentalization, centralization, standardization, and formulation are their highest values and so is integration.

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

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

This definition coincides with Max Weber's definition of Bureaucracy as the rational-legal form of efficient organization, but organizations nowadays are being moved from this unitary form (U-Form) to a smaller decentralized 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 Organization is the opposite of an Organic organization or Organismic organization.

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