Charles Perrow

Called Charles B. Perrow ( born February 9, 1925 in Tacoma, Washington, USA), and Chick Perrow, is an American organization theorist and sociologist. He taught and conducted research at the University of Pittsburgh and recently at Yale University.

Complex organizations: structure - Technology - Industry

Initially it was through his work Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay known, which was first published in 1972. Here is an outline of the then current theories of organizations. His own approach he designed in accordance with Max Weber's bureaucracy type. Unlike Weber, power structures, however, are visible primarily based on the degree of centralization or decentralization, in the comparison of organizational structures.

Organizations, therefore, differ primarily based on the core technology used in production, and on the basis of found industrial conditions (error -avoiding vs. Error -inducing system). The organization is not free to choose its structure since Perrow assumes that organizations their structures most likely in a ratio of the fit ( fit ) will bring to the respective core technology, since it would otherwise have to pay a high price in terms of loss of efficiency.

Although usually the situational analysis of individual companies is in the foreground of his work, Perrow designs a genuinely sociological approach: "If we take on industry, rather than Particular Organizations, as the unit of analysis, we can see the impact of the industry and its ties to. society upon the organization and its problems " (Charles Perrow: Complex Organizations: A Critical essay, p 152. )

Normal Accident Theory

" ... There is a form of accident did is inevitable. "

A wider public Perrow was the technique sociological publication Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies announced that arose in the context of an investigation of the near- disaster at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Iceland and was released shortly before the Chernobyl disaster. In it, he developed the idea that catastrophic event chains are probably not completely unavoidable in complex systems or permanently. This view is contrary to the statements of high-reliability theory, with the competing approach.

At the core of the considerations Perrow the theory of normal accidents is (a term that has been translated as Normal disasters in the German language ). Disaster -type accidents are therefore unavoidable, especially in tightly coupled and complex systems. In these cases, explain the accident only the interaction of multiple errors. Perrow theory predicts that failure to diverse and unexpected ways can occur, which are almost impossible to predict.

The essential difference exists for Perrow in the industrial and technical environments of the organization. Depending on the core technology varies the probability of an obscure and so difficult to control event chaining occurs, can be a catastrophic event at the end (eg "vapor cloud explosion "). Events occur in kontingentem relation to concrete situations one. Whether tight couplings evolve catastrophic systems is only a point in time recognizable in established (complex). Therefore Perrow Normal Accident Theory is counted among the so-called Kontingenztheorien or to the situational approaches to organization theory.

Writings (selection )

• The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disaster. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2008, ISBN 978-1-4008-2759-6.
• Organizing America: Wealth, power, and the origins of corporate capitalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2002, ISBN 978-1-4008-2508-0.
• Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. 2nd edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1984/1999, ISBN 0-691-00412-9 (with a new afterword ). Normal disasters. The inevitable risks of large-scale technology. Campus, Frankfurt 1987/1992, ISBN 3-593-34125-5.