Engineering standards: A new contextual variable for organization structure.

摘要

Organization structural differentiation leads to increased burden on managers in terms of coordination, communication and control. Organization structures differentiate in response to contextual variables, such as size, technology and environment. This study investigated whether the use of engineering standards also impacts structural differentiation, and, hence, constitutes a new contextual variable. Thirty-eight defense contractor project organizations were studied to see whether use of a reliability engineering standard, MIL-STD-785, impacted the reliability organization structural component in terms of horizontal and vertical differentiation. Organization structure data were obtained from reliability program plans. Horizontal differentiation was measured by the presence of a distinct structural unit. Vertical differentiation was measured by the number of organization levels. A potentially confounding factor, organization size, was measured using a financial measure, contract cost, obtained from government archives. Data were analyzed using logistic regression and nonparametric statistical tests. Use of MIL-STD-785 was found to be a statistically significant factor. Results showed that the odds of increasing both horizontal and vertical differentiation were substantially higher due to use of MIL-STD-785. Organization size was found not to be a significant factor. It was concluded that use of engineering standards constitutes a new contextual variable. Existing theories of structural differentiation explain the influence of contextual variables on the global differentiation of an organization. This study expands existing theory by linking a specific external stimulus to the differentiation of a specific organization structural component.