Applying Mintzberg'S theories on organizational configuration to archival appraisal

Archivaria

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 32-85

  Lemieux, Victoria ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES   (Jamaica)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33749020081     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Terry Cook, "Building an Archives: Appraisal Theory for Architectural Records, " American Archivist 59, no. 2 (Spring 1996), p. 141.
2. Schellenberg articulated his records values in T.R. Schellenberg, "The Appraisal of Modern Public Records, " Bulletin of the National Archives 8 (Washington, 1956), pp. 233-78. Archival manuals adopting the Schellenbergian approach to appraisal are legion and include Maynard J. Brichford, Archives & Manuscripts: Appraisal and Accessioning (Chicago, 1977).
3. Terry Cook, "Mind over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal, " in Barbara L. Craig, ed., The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa, 1992), pp. 38-70. Terry Cook has been a leading proponent of shifting the focus of appraisal from content to context, which he has articulated in his theory of macro-appraisal.
4. Broadly defined, the term macro-appraisal, while first advanced by Terry Cook, is applied in the context of this article to the writings of all authors who advance a theory of appraisal which seeks to identify records for long-term preservation through an analysis, usually functional, of the records creator (for example, organization) for the purpose of pinpointing and prioritizing sites of records creation, rather than through physically examining the records themselves to assess their content for evidential, informational, or other value types. David Bearman and Terry Cook must be singled out as among the leading macro-appraisal theorists. Both have written extensively on the subject. See, for example: David Bearman and Richard Lytle, "The Power of the Principle of Provenance, " Archivaria 21 (Winter 1985-86), pp. 14-27.
5. I refer here not just to organizational theory or the writings of organizational theorists which, of course, focus specifically on organizations, but also to theories from such disciplines as sociology, social anthropology, and linguistics which, while not directly concerned with a study of organizations, nevertheless, provide an analytical framework on which the study of organizations, and by extension the context of records creation, can be based. These include theories already reflected in the writings of archivists on the context of records creation, such as Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction (see, for example, Brien Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice, " Archivaria 32 [Summer 1991], pp. 78-100) and Anthony Giddens' theory of social structuration (see, for example, Cook, "Mind Over Matter".
6. See, for example, H.H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1948), the first translation into English of Weber's seminal work Wirtschaft and Gesellschaft. For commentaries on how Weber's ideas have permeated the field of archives, see for example, Michael Lutzker, "Max Weber and the Analysis of Modern Bureaucratic Organization: Notes Towards a Theory of Appraisal, " American Archivist 45 (Spring, 1982), pp. 119-30.
7. See, for example, Duchein, "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des fonds in Archival Science, " pp. 64-82.
8. This is not to suggest that these writers have not been influenced by other social theories. Terry Cook and Richard Brown, in particular, draw from the ideas of post-modernists such as Michel Foucault, as well as the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens.
9. For a discussion of the evolution of functionalism as a sociological school of thought see Donald McQuarrie, Readings in Contemporary Sociological Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1995) and James Farganis, Readings in Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism (New York, 1993).
10. Anthony Giddens' "structuration theory" rests on the idea that all social action consists of social practices situated in time and space. Social practice is organized in a skilled and knowledgeable fashion. However, unintended consequences of previous actions work to constrain and limit human knowledge and action. Giddens transcends action theory (the notion that humans are intelligent actors, not merely acted upon by the "system") and institutional theory in his "duality of structure, " that is, that social structure is shaped by a set of rules that both constrain actors and act as a resource at the same time. Social structures, then, are recursively both the medium and the outcome of social practice. For more on Anthony Giddens' theory see Ian Craib, Anthony Giddens (London, 1992).
11. Anthony Giddens and Jonathan Turner, eds., Social Theory Today (Oxford, 1987), p. 3.
12. Ronald R.E. Weissman, "Archives and the New Information Architecture of the Late 1990s, " American Archivist 57, no. 1 (Winter, 1994), p. 20.
13. For example, David Bearman and Richard Lytle write in "The Power of the Principle of Provenance" (p. 22) that "functions are independent of organizational structures, more closely related to the significance of documentation than organizational structures, and both finite in number and linguistically simple" and Terry Cook writes in "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal" (p. 46), that "it may be asserted that the interaction of function and structure together articulates the corporate mind (or program) of the records creator. The creator in turn articulates many subfunctions and establishes numerous substructures to carry out these broad programs. These in turn create or adopt information systems to organize and supply documentation needed to carry out these functions, and through these information systems are produced the records that archivists will eventually appraise. "
14. Henry Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973).
15. Henry Mintzberg, The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of the Research (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1979) and Structures in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983). The Mintzberg text primarily relied upon and cited in this article is Mintzberg's 1989 compilation of his writings, Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations (New York, 1989). This is an anthology of Mintzberg's ideas on organizations and how they are managed. The essays found within the book are grouped into three sections: 1) what the manager does, the process of strategy development, and the need for intuition and analysis in management.
16. The most sweeping criticism of Mintzberg's work could be leveled at its structural-functionalism.
17. I would like to express my thanks to the anonymous reviewer who brought several of these theorists to my attention, including but certainly not limited to Anthony Giddens' structuration theory, E.W. Stein's articles on organizational memory, and Mary Douglas on how institutions think. Those wishing to explore the ideas of these theorists may wish to consult Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Cambridge, 1984), Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think (London, 1987)
18. E.W. Stein, "Organizational Memory: Review of Concepts and Recommendations for Management, " International Journal of Information Management 15, no. 1 (1995), pp. 17-32.
19. Brown, "Macro-Appraial Theory and the Context of the Public Records Creator, " pp. 127-28. Brown concludes that record creator sites with official responsibility for record-keeping are not necessarily the sites holding archivally significant records and that, in fact, in focussing on what (following National Archives of Canada terminology) he calls "offices of creation" and not just on "offices of primary interest, " the archival application of hermeneutics will provide important documentary evidence of prime business transactions. Brown then advances his theory of archival hermeneutics as the means of identifying those nodes of creator context, the records of which should be selected for archival preservation.
20. David Bearman, "Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and America. " Bearman's conclusions draw upon the work of Geert Hofestede, Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values (Beverly Hills, 1980).
21. Mintzberg, Mintzberg on Management, p. 100.
22. For a further elaboration of the systems view of organizations see Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization (Newbury Park, 1986).
23. Mintzberg, Mintzberg on Management, pp. 98-99.
24. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
25. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
26. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
27. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
28. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
29. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
30. This is an observation also made by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government (New York, 1992). They write about the changing environment in which government institutions, for the most part classical bureaucracies, operate, and call for lean, decentralized, and innovative organizations in response to these environmental changes. Reengineering gurus Michael Hammer and James Champy also write about how organizations should change in response to a more competitive environment. See Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reegineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (New York, 1993), pp. 11-12, 17.
31. Mintzberg, Mintzberg on Management, pp. 108-109.
32. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
33. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
34. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
35. Using organizational typologies to aid appraisal is not a new idea. In a 1985 article on the appraisal of business documents, JoAnne Yates proposed three basic types of organizations-the traditional owner managed, the larger, functionally departmentalized firm, and the multidivisional firm-suggesting that each of these types has distinct internal communication systems. Yates argued that an understanding of these systems reveals crucial relationships and communication flows important for the appraisal of records. Yates' observations, however, were limited to three types of typical business structures, as opposed to Mintzberg's seven, and applied to appraisal of business records rather than records of all types of organizations, as is proposed in this article. It should be noted that Yates used an inductive method (that is, she analyzed internal communication of three businesses using their archives) to make her recommendations about appraisal of business records. This article adopts a deductive approach. See JoAnne Yates, "Internal Communication Systems in American Business Structures: A Framework to Aid Appraisal, " American Archivist 48, no. 2 (Spring 1985), pp. 141-58.
36. See Cook, "Mind Over Matter. "
37. Frank Upward, "Structuring the Records Continuum-Part Two: Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping. "
38. Mintzberg, Mintzberg on Management, pp. 117-18.
39. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
40. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
41. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
42. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
43. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
44. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
45. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
46. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
47. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
48. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
49. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
50. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
51. My reading of Mintzberg is that administrative adhocracies would not result in the creation of new companies from parent companies, this being more reminiscent of the diversified configuration. Rather, it would entail the complete handing over of operational responsibilities to an outside provider. For example, a high technology enterprise may function solely to develop and introduce new technology, but contract out the production of resultant new products to an outside manufacturer.
52. Mintzberg, Mintzberg on Management, pp. 227-32.
53. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
54. These include: 1) the insurgency game, ranging from protest to rebellion, used to resist control by more legitimate means and usually played by those at lower levels of the organization, who are likely to be subject to greater control.
55. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
56. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
57. All of these case studies provide useful material for further comparative analysis and research. See Barbara Craig, "Hospital Records and Record-Keeping, c. 1850-c. 1950: Part I: The Development of Records in Hospitals, " Archivaria 29 (Winter 1989-90), pp. 57-87, and "Hospital Records and Record-Keeping, c. 1850-c. 1950: Part II: The Development of Record-Keeping in Hospitals, " Archivaria 30 (Summer 1990), pp. 21-38.
58. Helen Willa Samuels, Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities (Metuchen & London, 1992).
59. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
60. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
61. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
62. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
63. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
64. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
65. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
66. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
67. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
68. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
69. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
70. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
71. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
72. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
73. JoAnne Yates, "Internal Communication Systems in American Business Structures: A Framework to Aid Appraisal, " American Archivist 48, no. 2 (Spring 1985), pp. 144-54.
74. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
75. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
76. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
77. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
78. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
79. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
80. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
81. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
82. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
83. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
84. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
85. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
86. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
87. See R.L. Flood and E.R. Garson, An Introduction to the Theory and Application of System Science 2nd Edition (New York, 1993).
88. This definition is taken from Peter Senge et al., The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (New York, 1994), p. 90.
89. Although I am sure there are better examples, as evidence of this I cite a course on electronic record-keeping offered by Edith Cowan University, which David Bearman was heavily involved in developing, and the Australian standard on records management, which prescribes a business systems analysis technique in records appraisal. See Standards Australia, Australian Standard AS4390.1-1996: Records Management (Homebush, NSW, 1996).
90. From Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (New York, 1990), p. 66.
91. See Piché, "Macro-Appraisal and Duplication of Information. "