For most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mechanistic designs and
closed-system thinking predominated. Newtonian science, which suggests that the
world functions as a well-ordered machine, continued to guide managers’ thinking about organizations.62 The environment was perceived as orderly and predictable, and the role of managers was to maintain stability. Organizations became large and complex, and boundaries between functional departments and between organizations were distinct. Internal structures grew more complex, vertical, and