FROM CHAOS TO SYSTEMS - THE ENGINEERING FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANIZATION THEORY, 1879-1932

This paper traces the genesis of the systems paradigm in the study of organizations in the United States back to nineteenth-century engineer ing practices. The empirical analyses for the period 1879-1932 are bas ed on primary data collected from three journals in which the study of organizations was first codified and crystallized: the Engineering Ma gazine, the American Machinist, and the ASME Transactions. The evoluti on of the systems paradigm was found to be a product of at least three forces that form one interacting gestalt: (1) the efforts of mechanic al engineers who sought industrial legitimation and whose professional paradigm spilled over into the organizational field; (2) the Progress ive period (1900-1917) and its rhetoric on professionalism, equality, order, and progress; and (3) labor unrest, which was perceived as a th reat to stable economic and social order. The paper provides a cultura l and political reading, rather than a functional and economic one, to the emergence of managerial thought and the evolution of organization theory.