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No universal way to manage; fit between organization and environment.
Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) and Jay W. Lorsch (b. 1932) of Harvard Business School studied firms in plastics, food, and containers to show that effective organizations differentiate to match environmental turbulence — and then must work hard to integrate. Their 1967 book won the Academy of Management's best-book award and defined organizational contingency theory.
Lawrence and Lorsch showed that effective organizations differentiate and integrate to fit their environments — stable environments reward mechanistic structures, turbulent ones reward organic structures.
The era: Situation & Contingency — Situational variables are considered; behavior is moderated by obstacles along the path between subordinates and goals.
No universal way to manage; fit between organization and environment.
Where this work feeds the Open Sky frameworks.
Fellow travelers on these threads:
Fit structure to environment: mechanistic for stability, organic for turbulence.
Differentiate units by their environments, then invest heavily in integration.