Small Business and the Theory of Small Bureaucracies
Open Access
- 1 January 1979
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in American Journal of Small Business
- Vol. 3 (3) , 34-47
- https://doi.org/10.1177/104225877900300305
Abstract
Findings from a partial replication of Blau's 1966 study of small bureaucracies suggest that small businesses of six or fewer employees offer substantial promise for the construction of theories of organizational behavior. Based on the strategy of examining simple forms of phenomena to isolate basic relationships, certain bivariate relationships rejected by Blau for larger organizations, are found to be significant for the smallest organizations in the present study. An expanded multi-variate causal regression analysis provides additional evidence. Seventy-seven small business firms constitute the sample and the variables analyzed are division of labor, professionalization, managerial hierarchy, and administrative apparatus.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- Leader Effectiveness in Small Bureaucracies.The Academy of Management Journal, 1977
- The World of Small Business: A Suggested TypologyAmerican Journal of Small Business, 1977
- The Decomposition of Effects in Path AnalysisAmerican Sociological Review, 1975
- The Structure of Small BureaucraciesAmerican Sociological Review, 1966