Cautionary tales from the Kalahari: how hunters become herders (and may have trouble changing back again)
通过卡拉哈里布须曼人从猎人转变为牧民的过程，类比组织从创业企业演变为官僚机构的稳定性与变革困难，指出成功带来的物质和心理财富是官僚制稳定的原因，并探讨了如何通过软性矩阵组织促进绩效与学习。
Executive Overview Much has been written about organizational change, but often with little insight into why established organizations are so stable and difficult to transform. In this article David Hurst uses the experience of the Kalahari Bushmen to bring an additional perspective to the problem. He draws the parallels between the recent transformation of the Bushmen from hunters to herders with the evolution of organizations from entrepreneurial ventures to settled bureaucracies. Anthropologists have identified the accumulation of possessions as the catalyst for the Bushmen's transformation and Hurst suggests that it is the products of success—physical and psychological possessions—that are responsible for the stability of organizational bureaucracies. However bureaucracies, like herders, can excel only in low variation environments and Hurst contends that their very success under such conditions leaves bureaucracies (and herders) vulnerable to sudden environmental change. He argues that the organizational structures required for performance actually inhibit learning and prevent transformation of herders back into hunters. Nevertheless, he suggests that both performance and learning in an organization can be enhanced by the use of a soft, “woven” matrix organization which links both the learning and performance aspects of the organization with the cognitive structures of meaning which integrate the individual, organization, and society.