ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES AS RECURSIVELY CONSTRUCTED SYSTEMS OF AGENCY AND CONSTRAINT - COMPLIANCE AND RESISTANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS

Compliance and resistance are omnipresent in organizational life, both as behavioural responses to the constraining elements of structure, a nd as the stimulus for redefining existing organizational practices. T his suggests that organizational structures and individual behaviours are reciprocally related. A typology of individual behaviours in relat ion to structural conditions is formulated by juxtaposing the extent t o which behaviours accept or challenge existing organizational structu res, and the intended organizational consequences of behaviour. The re sult is four behavioural categories that illustrate the tensions betwe en agency and constraint, indicating the organizational outcomes assoc iated with each.