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such data would ba a revised concept of what organizations are. if the

fabricated measures in figure 1 approximate realoty, this wouldo be more a

revolution than a revision, for the fabricated measures imply that one should

stop thinking of organizations as distinguishable subsets of society, and start

thinking of them as hills in a geography of human activities )Pock, 1972). Social

groups and networks would appear as islands and continents (Crozier,1972;Hoiberg & Cloyd, 1971; Levine, 1972).

Since there are many activity dimensions, one must choose the dimensions he

wishes to map--just as geographers musrchoose wheter to map altitudes,

climates, population densities, or transport networks--and the shapes of 

organizational hills will shift as functions of the dimensions mapped. On the

basis of figure 1, a map os psychological job investment would show a set of 

interteaus separated form each other by swallow valleys, and separated from

the general population of organizations by deep valleys; a map of response

speed would show each organization eas a steep spire rising form an

undulating plian. in either case, some people conventionally classified asorganization members would be undifferentiated from de population at large,

and other people would be difficult to assign to a specific organization.

  This view of organization is hardly new. it is latent in many texts on

organizations, social psychology, social anthropology, and industrial structure

(e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1966, pp. 30-70), and the maps one could draw are kindred

to the organizations chart and the sociogram. However, no one has yet

collected the data needed to convert a general orientation into a perceptual

frame of reference, and when someone docs, the topography of organization

theory itself should be tranformed.

At present, virtually all organizational research implicity or explicity assumes

organizations can be sharply distinguished from their enviroments. A given

person or phenomenon is inside or outside, or relevant or irrelevant. This

practice is analogous to trying to develop a physics of gases on the basis of a

dichotomy like breathable-un-breathable, wich scrambles togheter and ignores

fine gradations in temperature, pressure, and chemical composition. The

dichotomy makes such strong monotonicity assumptions and discard so much

onformation that it is nearly valueless, and yet its acceptability as a

measurement standard blocks systematic observations otf temperature,

pressure, and composition. Such simple and useful relations as Boyle´s ansAvogadro´s Laws may indefinitely remain undiscovered.

Domains, roles, and territories

Studies or organization-environment relations are also complicated by the

ambiguous, relativistic character of organizational environments (Barker, 1968;

Weick, 1969). To no small degree, an organization´s environment is an

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arbitrary invention of the organization itself. The organization selects the

environments it will inhabit, and the it subjectively defines the environments it

has selected.

ENVIRONMENTAL SELECTION .Taking into account the multiudinous dimensions

along which environments can vary and the many values each dimension canassume, an organization has potential access to a vast number of 

environments. And since the organization occupies just a few of these

locations, it effectively selects some alternatives from the complete set. At

least, that is an abstract conceptualization: the actual selection processes are

neither explicit, thoughtful, nor orderly.

Many environments are excluded from consideration by constraints which the

organization imposes unreflectively or unconsciously, through assumptions and

values tht are inherent in the organization´s decisio-making procedures (Buck,

1966; Starbuck &Dutton, 1973). One reason why criteria are implicit, rather

than explicit, is that the organizations in its social reference group. Since thetendency is to imitate choices tather than rules for choosing, the organization

is not forced to consider what the rules are; and even if the rules themselves

have been imtated, there is no contrast with what neighboring organizations do

to make the organization consider why it does what it does. Anther reason for

criteria being implicit is that selection processes are activated incrementally

(Mintz-erg, 1972; Normann,1972). An organization only examines its

environmental choices because external pressures, such as the actions of 

competing organizations, raise doubts about the viability of its present

environmet (Hedberg,1973,1974; Terreberry, 1968); and the organization only

reevaluates those environmental segments which are under attack. Selection

criteria supporting the unthreatened environments remain implicit, even

though they may be logically inconsistent whit criteria being ecplicitly applied

in the threatened domains.

On the whole, the nature of implicit selection criteria is less strongly

determined by an organization itself than by its neighbors--the surrounding

system of organizations which Evan (1966) called the organization-set.

Mambers of the organization-set provide the examples for imitation (Chandler,

1962; Richman & Copen, 1972; Starbuck & Dutton, 1973; Stinchcombe, 1965).

 They make the attackswhich instigate environmental reassessments, and then

they constrain yhe directions incremental revisions can take (Clarck, 1965;levine &White, 1961; Maniha & Perrow, 1965; Thompson & McEwen, 1958;

Weick, 1969). They set prices, costs, and transmit managerial traditions. Since

implicit criteria filter our nearly all environmental alternatives and leave only a

small number for explicit consideration (Cyert et al., 1956), an organization´s

ultimate environmental selections are strongly affected by the properties of its

which specific organizations occupy appropiate environments are partilly

controlled by organizational social systems as wholes (Levine & White, 1961;

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Hirsch, 1972).

Once a set of environmental alternatives has benn explicitly identified, the

organization must select some to inhabit. But organizations´choices among

explicit alternatives are none too systematic (COhen et al., 1972; Cyert et al.,

1956; Normann, 1971). Some environmental alternatives possess specialprominence because they p´redate the choice question and even the

organization, or because they are accompanied by unusually large amounts of 

information. Other alternatives are judged promising or unpromising on the

basis of a priori theories that owe as much to folklore and myth as to analysis

and evidence. Alternatives which are actualy explored tend to be evaluated

with whatever data can be easily and quickly acquired. Some alternatives are

rejected because of initial impressions that would not be substantiated by

investigation, and others become final contenders on equally superficial

grounds. Not infreuently, the evaluation data are provided by other

organizations which are advocating the selection of particular alternatives--

potential customers or suppliers, communities seeking industrial employers,and so on.

Of course, noise and disorder in the selection process degrade the association

between organizational and environmental properties. Even if an organization

would attempt to assess its idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses and to

choose environments which matched and complemented hem, it would likely

end up inhabiting environments whise properties were only loosely correlated

with its idiosyncracies. But in addition, nearly all organizations find it im-