Fill Blank
the Industrial Revolution and the industrial age. Again, according to Goodman, this lasted for a long time, until around 1945. It was characterised by a series of inventions and innovations that reduced the number of people needed to work the land and, in tum, provided the means of production of hitherto rarely obtainable goods; for organisations, supplying these in ever increasing numbers became the aim. To a large extent, demand and supply were predictable, enabling companies to structure their organisations along what Bums and Stalker [1966] described as mechanistic lines,that is as systems of strict hierarchical structures and firm means of control.
[Paragraph 3] This situation prevailed for some time, with demand still coming mainly from the domestic market and organisations striving to fill the 'supply gap'. Thus, the most disturbing environmental influence on organisations of this time was the demand for products, which outstripped supply. The saying attributed to Henry Ford that 'You can have any colour of car so long as it is black', gives a flavour of the supply-led state of the market. Apart from any technical difficulties of producing different colours of car, Ford did not have to worry about customers' colour preferences: he could sell all that he made. Organisations of this period can be regarded as 'task-oriented', with effort being put into increasing production through more effective and efficient production processes.
Paragraph 41 As time passed, this favourable period for organisations began to decline. In the neo-[
Next
