The Contingent Construction Of Formal Organization

In the complicated social space, what is the real logic of the structural change of formal organization? This question is all along a core research issue of organization study. On this topic, three main explaining mechanics have been put forward. The first one is the rational choice school and some studies which prefer to the perspective of Economics, this researches state that "efficiency factor" is the most important influence factor on the transformation of organization structure; The second approach is the institutionalism school of sociology, scholars in this field point out that the legitimacy institution environment of organization will determine its own structure and its transformation; The third perspective is contingency theory, it provide us a more flexible interpretation. Contingency theory researchers like to believe that the organization form and structure is a product of being adapting to its environments.Frankly to say, to some extent, those three explaining routes have presented some relative complex and strict theoretical logics and provided us certain theory support on understanding the structure transformation of formal organization. However, these researches neglected the two characters of modern organizations in the practicing process more or less. Firstly, the organization's acting strategies and the environment are both uncertain constructive products, it would not necessarily exist a one by one corresponding and certain function relationship; Secondly, there is no one dividing line between the structure and strategy behavior of organization, the bound between structure and strategy act is increasingly ambiguous, in another word, the change of formal organization contains a more subtle political process, between structure and act, there is a relationship of mutual-construction. So, any perception and understanding on the logic of organization structure change would be incomplete. That is to say, another deep logic relation of organization structure transformation would be probable on which our newly discovery is needed.In this paper, we empirically surveyed the structure transformation process of two sub-branch units of CPC in Shanghai. These two sub-branch units of CPC had both made some modifications on their own structures in the complication context of the performance environment. However, difference is transparent: the quiet change of Louyu(mansion or building)'s CPC units is a process of from bottom to top, conversely, the changing process of Yangguangyizhan(sunshine stop) is conducted by its superior department according to the designed formal plan from the top to bottom. In this research, we found that there existed great difference on the form between the two processes, but they contained a sharing deep mechanic. Concretely to say, organization structure transformation would not be on single basis, this changing process is also necessarily contingent, the transformation of organization structure is frankly one kind of subtle political process, during this process, there are so many strategies of actors, and thus it will present strong characters of construction.What theory inspiration we would obtain in this paper is that organization will react to the environment with its structure, and this process is not a mechanical one but a choice process which is the consequence of the synthesis among some strategies choices. Organization structure and actors' strategy performance would be mutual constructed.This inspiration will probably conduct us to make an better interpretation and understanding on the logic of that how actors would construct the structure, then we could got a deep perception on the factors of organization structure transformation, thus we could surpass the statement of simple technology determinism and the legitimacy argument which is based on single rationality.