The role behaviour of managers and the structure of organisations.

This research has focused on particular aspects of organisational behaviour. It has expressed a concern for the tendency of many studies of organisational behaviour to dichotomize concepts and to separate much of the theory and empiricisms Accordingly, considerable effort has been given to appraising the theory surrounding the concepts of the 'formal' and the 'informal' with a view to determining their importance and value. The theoretical discussion has established that directly and indirectly these concepts have remained an essential part of the theory of organisations. Despite this apparent importance the concepts have been poorly defined and even more poorly utilised. Empirical research vas, therefore, embarked upon to determine the practical value of these concepts with particular emphasis on managerial behaviour. The ensuing studies provided material fox' the development of additional concepts which elaborate and hopefully enriched the traditional though vague understanding of formal and informal. The main intentions behind the elaboration and clarification of the concepts was to include behavioural actions and intentions. The framework adopted for this purpose was a social action framework. This approach signified the importance that was to be given to individual perception and meaning relating to situations and circumstance. It was not adopted on the basis of excluding a 'system' approach bait rather to place the system approach in an 'actor' meaningful perspective. This is not so much, therefore, an attempt at convergence, but at illustrating essential relationships. The research has concluded with what is described as a 'contextual typology' which illustrates diagrammatically how the ideas of structure and process have been interrelated