Components of Effectiveness in Small Organizations

If it is to become effective in terms of survival and growth, an organization must fulfill (or satisfice) the needs and demands of its employees, its owners, and the relevant members of the society with which it transacts (its community, its governments, its customers, its suppliers, and its creditors). In this study, ninety-seven small-business organizations and their relevant societal components were surveyed in order to explore the extent to which the organization fulfilled the needs of these components. Data indicate relatively few significant relationships among various types of employee fulfillment, owner fulfillment, and societal fulfillment, and these few relationships are of a rather low magnitude. The feasibility of an organization concurrently fulfilling the variety of demands made upon it is discussed. The organization is viewed as an open system of interdependent components, with energy transfer within the organization as well as between the organization and the societal components. Frank Friedlander is associate professor of organizational behavior, school of management, at Case Western Reserve University, and Hal Pickle is associate professor in the department of business administration, Southwest Texas State College.