Oscar Grusky

Managerial Succession and Organizational Effectiveness

A negative correlation is found between (1) rates of managerial succession and effectiveness and (2) change in succession rate and change in organizational effectiveness among sixteen professional baseball teams examined over two time periods, 1921-41 and 1951-58. A set of ten variables from organization theory is applied to the analysis of team performance and administrative succession. A number of illustrative propositions are presented.

Corporate Size, Bureaucratization, and Managerial Succession

Two studies of the largest and smallest business corporations among the top five hundred were conducted. The positions of board chairman, presiden, treasurer, controller, and secretary were examined over a ten-year span to determine whether succession had taken place in each office. The findings indicated that frequency of succession was positively related to size of firm. An explanation was proposed which suggested that the process of succession be radically different in form and organizational consequence for the large, bureaucratized system than for the smaller, less bureaucratized one.

ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND THE BEHAVIOR OF INFORMAL LEADERS

In an experimental prison camp the goal of treatment and particularly its effects on processes of social control in the organization are related to the highly co-operative adaptation of the unofficial leaders. Interviews and questionnaires indicate that inmate leaders were likely to receive higher adjustment ratings and to manifest more favorable attitudes toward the camp officials, the camp itself, and its program of treatment than were non-leaders. Moreover, leaders were less likely to request transfer, to be transferred for disciplinary reasons, or to escape from the institution.