Roger Mansfield

Market Conditions, Centralization, and Organizational Effectiveness: Contingency Theory Reconsidered

The paper reports a study carried out in South Wales to further evaluate one of the more specific propositions derivedfrom the generalframework of the structural contingency theory of organizations. This relates the extent of centralization of decision-making in an organization to organizational effectiveness under different conditions of market competition. Both behavioral and financial measures of effectiveness are examined. The results obtained differ substantially from those obtained in previous studies carried out in India and Mexico. While it is accepted that such differences could be due to variations in cultural and economic conditions it is suggested that they may indicate significant weaknesses in contingency theory as it is presently stated.

Britain's Managers Over Twenty Years: A Focus on Ownership, Control and Stakeholder Interests

The role of managers is undoubtedly a central one in all advanced economies and societies. Not surprisingly, then, rigorous research on mangers and managerial behaviour in Britain has advanced appreciably during the last two decades [1]. For many years, Stewart [2], [3], [4] has thus produced a variety of detailed aQd informed studies on managerial behaviour that greatly altered perceptions of the managerial role. In the spheres of human resource management and industrial relations, the analysis of managers has become increasingly sophisticated [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. Other studies have covered such areas as the quality of working life of managers [10], [11], women in management [13], [14], training for managers [15], [16] and middle managers [17], [18]. Recently, too, these investigations have been further reinforced by path breaking ethnographic researches [19] and by rigorous comparative studies [20]. But outside the sphere of employee relations (associated with the Workplace Industrial Relations (now Workplace Employee Relations)) surveys [21], [22], there has been a dearth of longitudinal data upon which to advance the theoretical and empirical understanding of managerial attitudes and behaviour in a rapidly changing business environment.

HAVE MANAGERS CHANGED IN THE LAST TEN YEARS

Change is the only certainty of the management function. Compares the managers of 1980 with those of 1990 from the viewpoint of gender, age, nature of employment, management salaries, managerial function and size of employer.