What is an Organization?—Theory
"Organizations are hard to see. We see outcroppings, such as a tall building, a computer workstation, or a friendly employee, but the whole organization is vague and abstract and may be scattered among several locations, even around the world. We know organizations are there because they touch us every day. Indeed, they are so common that we take them for granted. We hardly notice that we are born in a hospital, have our birth records registered in a government agency, are educated in schools and universities, are raised on food produced on corporate farms, use our phones to hail a ride, purchase clothes, or have groceries delivered, buy a house built by a construction company and sold by a real estate agency, borrow money from a bank, turn to police and fire departments when trouble erupts, use moving companies to change residences, and receive an array of benefits from various government agencies." FOOTNOTE Based in part on Howard Aldrich, Organizations and Environments (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979), 3.