A Comparative Analysis of Empirical Research on Technology and Structure

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Abstract
This paper proposes that when empirical research on the technology-structure relationship is classified by organizational level and by type of technology studied, the evidence favoring a technological imperative is quite consistent. The only studies which have yielded inconsistent results have been those focusing on the total organization, where the measurement of both the transformation technology and structure has been particularly problematic. At the workflow or subunit level of organizations, generally strong technology-structure relationships have been observed. The same is true for system level studies where technology was operationalized in terms of the characteristics of environmental inputs or outputs rather than of the transformation process itself. It is suggested that the consistency and value of future research results on the technology-structure connection can be considerably enhanced if researchers take greater care to specify their organizational levels of analysis as well as the way in which they operationalize their technology and structure variables. Some preliminary suggestions are also made for the development of a general theory of the technology structure link.