The manager is one of the great unknowns in business. Although perhaps the most common word in the corporate lexicon, the term “manager” meets with little agreement as to nature, meaning, or scope. This is all the more surprising when we consider the vital importance of precise understanding of this expression to most enterprises.
~ Louis A. Allen
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Ask any two managers precisely what they mean by ‘staff’, or ‘decentralization,’ or ‘budget.’ The differences in interpretation will make communication difficult. If we are to develop professional practices of management work, semantics requires first attention.
~ Louis A. Allen
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A niche is created by the intersection of resource constraints— an abstract resource space consisting of a unique combination of resources that could permit a form to survive there. Forms thus either take advantage of a niche resource space or fail.
~ Howard E. Aldrich
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Environmental niches are distinct in combination of resources and other constraints that are sufficient to support organizational form. Organizational forms, then, are organized activity systems oriented toward exploiting the resources within a niche.
~ Howard E. Aldrich
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Organizations are goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity systems.
~ Howard E. Aldrich
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