Information handling, organizational structure, and power

Arrangements for communicating and processing information are ordinarily designed to serve an organization's structure of more‐or‐less delegated and decentralized decision making. However, analysis indicates that in the longer term, the reverse is also true: Organizational structures and the distribution of power within organizational structures adapt to changes in information handling capability, as, for example, in military strategic communications. Delegation of decision making is inversely related to the effectiveness of information handling. Delegation and decentralization can be viewed as indicative of (and as a response to) inadequate information handling. Improved information handling can be expected to centralize power. © 1989 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.