Organizational Size and Administration: The Problems of Causal Homogeneity and a Heterogeneous Category

The relationship between total organization size and relative size of the organizational administrative component has been the object of several studies over the past few years. These studies began in 1951 with Seymour Melman's study of the manufacturing industry which suggested that the two variables were inversely related.' However, subsequent studies in a variety of organizational settings have failed to produce consistent results: some findings uggest a positive correlation, others a negative correlation, and still others question whether there is any correlation at all." In light of this, one may be disposed to argue that organizational size has no systematic effect on the relative size of the administrative component. It is possible, however, that the inconsistent results are due to a methodological artifact as well as, or instead of, the true nature of events. In most studies a wide range of occupations are included as "administrative personnel," the assumption being, of course, that all the occupations are similarly affected by changes in organization size. But it is possible that the relative size of some "administrative" occupations increase with organizational size while others decrease; considering the heterogeneous quality of occupations in the category of administrative personnel, it is quite probable that this is true. If it is true, and if the relative proportion of the different occupations are not consistent from organization to organization and from time to time, inconsistent results would be expected. In any case, the objective of this paper is to determine whether or not different classes of "administrative personnel" are indeed associated with overall organizational size in different ways. As in Melman's study, census materials provide the data.