The Network Structures of Organizations: Effects of Task Contingencies and Distributional Form
研究将组织内部结构用网络术语（密度、连通性、对称性、聚类）重新概念化，基于36家机构的调查数据，分析这些网络属性与分化、正式化、集权化等分布属性及任务权变变量的关系，支持有机组织表现为高密度、高连通性、低层级和低聚类的网络特征。
The broad concern in this paper is a long-standing one in organizational sociology, the determinants of organizational structures. However, it is argued that internal structures are better conceived and operationalized in network terms than in the "distributional" terms of past organizational research. From a survey of 36 agencies, network data were obtained on the communication and client referral ties among practitioner staff. From these data, the following structural measures were computed for each organization, density, connectivity (cohesion), symmetry (hierarchy), and clustering. From such theories of organization as Burns and Stalker's distinction between mechanistic and organic forms, hypotheses were derived relating these network structural properties to the distributional properties of differentiation, formalization, and centralization, as well as the task contingency variables of size, age, technology, and professionalization. The regression analysis provides support for the general argument that organic organization is manifested in networks characterized by high density, connectivity, and multiplexity combined with low hierarchy and clustering.