Size in Residential Service Organizations

Abstract

Data from 23 alcoholism halfway houses are analyzed to assess the relationship of four aspects of organizational size to three levels of organizational functioning. As identified by Kimberly (1976), the dimensions of size are (1) personnel, (2) inputs/outputs, (3) physical capacity, and (4) amount of discretionary resources. The three levels of organizational analysis are (1) internal (reflecting social control issues), (2) external (organization-environment relations), and (3) socio-technical (core technology issues). The amount of discretionary resources, followed closely by personnel size, is the dimension of size most relevant to all three aspects of organizational opcrations. Contrary to expectations, input-volume (or number of residential clients) was related negatively both to a more differentiated internal structure and to supportive organization-environment relations. Also unexpected, client-size had little relationship to the programming or staffing aspects of the core technology. Physical capacity (number of client beds) was the least significant aspect of size for this sample of organizations. Additional analyses of size as a multi-dimensional concept and refinement in theories relating size to the structure and operations of residential service organizations are needed.