Organization theory: Where are you?

This paper seeks to summarize the present state of organization theory. It takes as its starting-point the work of early organization theorists and demonstrates that their work has been challenged in basically four different ways, i.e. regarding the view on (a) individuals in organizations, (b) the interaction among individuals in organizations, (c) the relationship between organizations and their environments and (d) the technology of organizations. The implications of these qualifications are discussed with reference to recent literature. These discussions led to the conclusion that the number of research questions have increased rather than decreased over the years. Thus, a unified organization theory may be less valid today than at the beginning of the century. This circumstance, however, it is argued, should not be considered a regression but rather a sign of increasing insight.