Organization Structure and Communications

A theoretical model is developed in which organizational structure is related to the type of coordination in the organization-planning or programming versus feedback or mutual adjustment. It is argued that the nature of the mechanism of coordination employed in the organization in turn affects the volume and direction of communications in the organization. Hypotheses are developed relating the variables of complexity, formalization, and centralization to communication rates. These hypotheses are tested in a 1967 study of 16 health and welfare organizations using a number of different measures of communications. In general, interdepartmental communications, both scheduled and unscheduled, are found to be affected most by these structural characteristics.