Configurations as a diagnostic tool
What in fact are these configurations?
(1) abstract ideals,
(2) real-life structures, one of which an organization had better use if it is to survive, or
(3) building blocks for more complex structures? In some sense, the answer is a qualified yes in all three cases.
These are certainly abstract ideals, simplifications of the complex world of structure. Yet the abstract ideal can come to life too.
Every organization experiences the five pulls that underlie these configurations: the pull to centralize by the top man agement, the pull to formalize by the technostructure, the pull to professionalize by the operators, the pull to balkanize by the managers of the middle line, and the pull to collaborate by the support staff