The Goal Paradigm and Notes Towards a Counter Paradigm

The ideas contained in this paper were first developed in seminars held by Leon Peres at University of Melbourne, 1968. 1 also wish to thank Josef Szwarc for his invaluable assistance and Colin Rubenstein and Rudolf Plehwe for their substantive suggestions. Organization theorists have faced many difficulties in conceptualizing organizational goals and understanding organizational behavior through them. This paper suggests that commitment to a goal paradigm has retarded analysis by requiring disassociation of conceptual scheme from incompatible empirical findings on organizations. Barnard's incentive system analysis is seen as providing foundations of a counter paradigm, and suggestions are made for its development along lines indicated by his statement the individual is basic strategic factor in organization. Organizations are not viewed as analytically distinctive social units given meaning by their goals, but as arbitrary focusses of interest, marketplaces whose structures and processes are outcomes of complex accommodations made by actors exchanging a variety of incentives and pursuing a diversity of goals. @