Field Experiments with Formal Organizations

A recent task of describing a field experiment concerning organizational structure and process (11) has led us to make a review of some other studies of a similar kind, and to formulate some general thoughts on the dilemmas and strategies in such research. This article is a first rough attempt at organizing these thoughts. It seems worth doing because: a) few people have had any direct experience in conducting field experiments with complex organizations, b) with increasing financial and methodological resources we are likely to see more work of this kind, and c) compared with experiments of other kinds, certain issues of strategy and method become of crucial importance and deserve examination.