Centralization and decentralization: The neverending story of separation and betrayal

This paper employs a "deconstructive" approach to examine the relationship between forces for organizational centralization and decentralization. Three common assumptions: that the "information age" of the 1980s and early 1990s was enabling a permanent emancipatory movement away from centralized structures; that there exists for each organization an achievable balance between the two poles; and, that trends regarding centralization and its opposite are driven by "external" environmental forces, such as managerial styles and technological developments, are questioned. This paper highlights an aspect which has not surfaced in the organization theory literature on centralization and decentralization -- that the pendulous movement between the two is driven, as much as anything else, by an inherent "internal" dynamic between and within the nature of the written terms, and within the nature of human beings.

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