Since the Industrial Revolution, the main if not the exclusive concern of organizations has been with production of material goods and services. Thus, organization theory and research in organizations have taken the technical rationality of these systems as a given, either explicitly or implicitly. More generally, technological progress --- the discovery of improved means for increasing productivity --- is a powerful social value in industrially advanced nations. The economic systems of these nations are geared to reward those organizations and their managers for successful quests of technical rationality