Studies of Hierarchical Organizations
The organizational development theorist Elliott Jacques identified a special role for hierarchy in his concept of requisite organization.
The iron law of oligarchy, introduced by Robert Michels, describes the inevitable tendency of hierarchical organizations to become oligarchic in their decision making.
Hierarchiology is the term coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter, originator of the Peter Principle described in his humorous book of the same name, to refer to the study of hierarchical organizations and the behavior of their members.
Having formulated the Principle, I discovered that I had inadvertently founded a new science, hierarchiology, the study of hierarchies. The term hierarchy was originally used to describe the system of church government by priests graded into ranks. The contemporary meaning includes any organization whose members or employees are arranged in order of rank, grade or class. Hierarchiology, although a relatively recent discipline, appears to have great applicability to the fields of public and private administration. —Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go WrongThe IRG Solution - hierarchical incompetence and how to overcome it argued that hierarchies were inherently incompetent, and were only able to function due to large amounts of informal lateral communication fostered by private informal networks.
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