Routine Technology, Social Structure, and Organization Goals

This paper investigates the relationship between organizational technology, specifically the degree of routineness of work, and the social structure and goals of health and welfare organizations.! Hypotheses relating four aspects of social structure and two aspects of organizational goals with the degree of routine work are tested with data from sixteen social welfare and health organizations located in a Midwestern metropolis in 1967. The social structure of organizations with more routine work are found to be more centralized, more formalized, and to have less professionally trained staffs, but no relationship with stratification is found. Organizations with routine work are further found to emphasize goals of efficiency and the quantity of clients served, not innovativeness, staff morale, or quality of client services.