Administrative Reorganization and Configurational Context: The Contingent Effects of Age, Size, and Change in Size

Abstract

The administrative reorganization of top-level managers in 200 colleges and universities was examined over a ten-year period. Findings showed that organizational size, age, and change in size work in configurations to affect administrative reorganization. Arguments focusing on competing forces for structural change and stability provide explanations for differences in levels of reorganization. These forces originate in countervailing pressures from increased complexity associated with large size, the inertia of old age, and stimuli for change during growth and decline.

Keywords: reorganization, organization size, growth, decline