A Primer of Organization Theories in Health Care

This chapter provides a brief introduction to what can be referred to as the canon of basic macrolevel organization theory in health care. Until the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, the principal focus of organization theory has been on the interior of organizations. That is, the earliest writings on organizations, like Frederick Taylor\u27s scientific management, Max Weber\u27s bureaucratic theory, the human relations school with its contrast to scientific management, and other approaches to the study of organizations, addressed questions about the design of work, employee motivation, management skills and techniques, control systems, and the like. For the most part, the chapters in this book do not address these internal issues; in contemporary organization studies, these sorts of questions fall under the rubric of organization behavior, and they warrant a separate book on their own