Loosely Coupled Systems: A Reconceptualization

Diverse applications of the concept of loose coupling are embodied in five recurring voices that focus separately on causation, typology, effects, compensations, and outcomes. Each has a tendency to drift away from a dialectical interpretation of loose coupling toward a unidimensional interpretation of loose coupling, thereby weakening the explanatory value of the concept. The authors first use the five voices to review the loose coupling literature and then to suggest more precise and more productive uses of the concept.

[1]  A. J. Grimes.  Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies , 1985 .

[2]  J. Thompson,et al.  Strategies, Structures, and Processes of Organizational Decision , 1959 .

[3]  Harold Guetzkow,et al.  Comparative Studies in Administration. , 1960 .

[4]  Tom R. Burns,et al.  The Management of Innovation. , 1963 .

[5]  Magoroh Maruyama,et al.  THE SECOND CYBERNETICS Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes , 1963 .

[6]  P. Lawrence,et al.  Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations , 1967 .

[7]  James D. Thompson.  Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory , 1967 .

[8]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[9]  Michael X Cohen,et al.  A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. , 1972 .

[10]  K. Weick,et al.  The Effect of Composer Credibility on Orchestra Performance , 1973 .

[11]  Robert B. Glassman,et al.  Persistence and loose coupling in living systems , 1973 .

[12]  P. Nystrom,et al.  Camping on Seesaws: Prescriptions for a Self-Designing Organization , 1976 .

[13]  K. Weick.  Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems , 1976, Gestión y Estrategia.

[14]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  Ambiguity and choice in organizations , 1976 .

[15]  M. Hannan,et al.  The Population Ecology of Organizations , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[16]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[17]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  The External Control of Organizations. , 1978 .

[18]  John D. Hewitt,et al.  Ceremonial Justice: Crime and Punishment in a Loosely Coupled System , 1979 .

[19]  Loose Structure, Retrenchment and Adaptability in the University. , 1979 .

[20]  Irene S. Rubin,et al.  RETRENCHMENT, LOOSE STRUCTURE AND ADAPTABILITY IN THE UNIVERSITY* , 1979 .

[21]  Perspectives on the Growth and Development of Organizations: SPSA As A Specific Case of Choice and Transition , 1979, The Journal of Politics.

[22]  K. Weick,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2d ed. , 1980 .

[23]  T. Deal,et al.  How Much Influence Do (and Can) Educational Administrators Have on Classrooms , 1980 .

[24]  Meilir Page-Jones,et al.  The practical guide to structured systems design , 1980 .

[25]  J. March,et al.  Information in Organizations as Signal and Symbol. , 1981 .

[26]  W. Ouchi,et al.  Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge. , 1981 .

[27]  Philip H. Birnbaum,et al.  Integration and Specialization in Academic Research , 1981 .

[28]  B. Hedberg.  How Organizations Learn and Unlearn , 1981 .

[29]  Charles Perrow,et al.  Normal accident at three Mile Island , 1981 .

[30]  Curriculum Change in Loosely Coupled Systems. , 1981 .

[31]  Kae H. Chung,et al.  Theory Z: How American Business can Meet the Japanese Challenge , 1982 .

[32]  Peter K. Manning,et al.  PRODUCING DRAMA: SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION AND THE POLICE* , 1982 .

[33]  D. Vaughan.  Toward Understanding Unlawful Organizational Behavior , 1982 .

[34]  R. Kaplan.  Intervention in a Loosely Organized System: An Encounter with Non-Being , 1982, The Journal of applied behavioral science.

[35]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Administering Education in Loosely Coupled Schools. , 1982 .

[36]  ORGANIZED ANARCHIES, LOOSELY COUPLED SYSTEMS, AND ADHOCRACIES: , 1982 .

[37]  Frank W. Lutz,et al.  Tightening up Loose Coupling in Organizations of Higher Education. , 1982 .

[38]  K. Provan.  The Federation as an Interorganizational Linkage Network , 1983 .

[39]  Strength of Coupling in the Organization and Operation of Colleges and Universities. , 1983 .

[40]  S Ramnarayan,et al.  Organizational Effectiveness: An Alternative Perspective , 1983 .

[41]  Peter C. Gronn.  Talk as the Work: The Accomplishment of School Administration , 1983 .

[42]  David A. Tansik,et al.  The Customer Contact Model for Organization Design , 1983 .

[43]  H. Dickson Corbett,et al.  Organization and Change: The Effects of School Linkages on the Quantity of Implementation , 1983 .

[44]  Mark W. Dirsmith,et al.  Budgeting as a means for control and loose coupling , 1983 .

[45]  Maryan s. Schall.  A Communication-Rules Approach to Organizational Culture. , 1983 .

[46]  S. Piereson,et al.  In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. By Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. New York: Harper & Row, 1982 , 1983 .

[47]  Jim Thomas.  Justice as Interaction: Loose Coupling and Mediations in the Adversary Process* , 1983 .

[48]  William A. Firestone,et al.  The Study of Loose Coupling: Problems, Progress, and Prospects. , 1984 .

[49]  B. Hedberg,et al.  Career dynamics in a steelworks of the future , 1984 .

[50]  Sirinimal Withane.  Changing Patterns of Local Administration in Sri Lanka: Loose-Coupling between Planning and Implementation , 1984 .

[51]  T. K. Das.  Portmanteau Ideas for Organizational Theorizing , 1984 .

[52]  P Leatt,et al.  Criteria for grouping nursing subunits in hospitals. , 1984, Academy of Management journal. Academy of Management.

[53]  Philip Hallinger,et al.  Policy Analysis at the Local Level: A Framework for Expanded Investigation , 1984 .

[54]  R. Daft,et al.  Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation Systems , 1984 .

[55]  Anil K. Gupta.  Contingency Linkages Between Strategy and General Manager Characteristics: A Conceptual Examination , 1984 .

[56]  Jim Thomas.  SOME ASPECTS OF NEGOTIATED ORDER, LOOSE COUPLING AND MESOSTRUCTURE IN MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISONS* , 1984 .

[57]  E. Eisenberg.  Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication , 1984 .

[58]  Robert W. Keidel.  Baseball, football, and basketball: Models for business , 1984 .

[59]  Gareth R. Jones.  Task Visibility, Free Riding, and Shirking: Explaining the Effect of Structure and Technology on Employee Behavior , 1984 .

[60]  Stephen F. Jablonsky,et al.  Traditional and emergent theories of budgeting: An empirical analysis , 1985 .

[61]  James A. Perkins,et al.  The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective , 1985 .

[62]  Managing Organizational Relationships in Continuing Education Programs , 1985 .

[63]  S. Sunesson.  Outside the Goal Paradigm: Power and Structured Patterns of Non-Rationality , 1985 .

[64]  L. Smircich,et al.  Strategic Management in an Enacted World , 1985 .

[65]  P. Bobko.  Removing Assumptions of Bipolarity: Towards Variation and Circularity , 1985 .

[66]  Managing Organizational Relationships in Continuing Education Programs , 1985 .

[67]  Terrence E. Deal,et al.  The Symbolism of Effective Schools , 1985, The Elementary School Journal.

[68]  B. Barzansky,et al.  Goal Coupling and Innovation in Medical Schools , 1986 .

[69]  Claudia Bird Schoonhoven,et al.  Sociotechnical Considerations for the Development of the Space Station: Autonomy and the Human Element in Space , 1986 .

[70]  Robert Dreeben,et al.  Coupling and Control in Educational Organizations. , 1986 .

[71]  C. Nemeth.  Differential contributions of majority and minority influence , 1986 .

[72]  D. Meyerson,et al.  CULTURAL CHANGE: AN INTEGRATION OF THREE DIFFERENT VIEWS[1] , 1987 .

[73]  J. March.  Ambiguity and accounting: The elusive link between information and decision making☆ , 1987 .

[74]  Robert R. Faulkner,et al.  Short-Term Projects and Emergent Careers: Evidence from Hollywood , 1987, American Journal of Sociology.

[75]  Robert W. Zmud,et al.  Information Technology Planning in the 1990's: Directions for Practice and Research , 1987, MIS Q..

[76]  David A. Whetten,et al.  Organizational Effects of Decline and Turbulence. , 1987 .

[77]  A. Grandori.  Perspectives on organization theory , 1987 .

[78]  Mel Horwitch,et al.  The Effect of Business Interdependencies on Product R&D-Intensive Business Performance , 1987 .

[79]  William D. Bygrave,et al.  The structure of the investment networks of venture capital firms , 1988 .

[80]  J. Douglas. Orton.  Toward a Theory of the Loosely Coupled System , 1988 .

[81]  Rafik Issa Beekun.  Towards a contingency framework of coupling : a conceptual and quantitative approach , 1988 .

[82]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  The Tradeoffs of Social Control and Innovation in Groups and Organizations , 1989 .

[83]  R. Luke,et al.  Quasi firms: strategic interorganizational forms in the health care industry. , 1989, Academy of management review. Academy of Management.

[84]  J. E. Groves,et al.  Made in America: Science, Technology and American Modernist Poets , 1989 .

[85]  Organizations , 1992, Restoration & Management Notes.