Informal to Formal Organizations

A Thought Paper on
Informal Organizations and Their Relation
to Formal Organizations
By Chester Barnard

As I was reading Barnard’s article, I could immediately imagine two scrawny college dudes in cardinal red university hoodies hunched up in front of boxy desktop computers surfing the Internet (instead, probably, of working on their doctoral dissertations) while a 1994 hit song fills their tiny campus trailer. Then unaware of the phenomenal consequences their hobby had potential of becoming, friends Jerry Yang and David Filo simple-mindedly keyed in codes just so they could keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” or as we now all know it as: Yahoo!, as with most organizations and as the article points out, had its roots in the informal, the structure-less and indefinite.
Barnard elaborates on the correlation between the informal and the formal organization, how and what is needed for one to transition into and coexist alongside the other. Yahoo!, among countless more examples fit perfectly what it is he is trying to materialize in writing. It begins with at least two individuals linked by personal ties, as were schoolmates Jerry and Dave, sharing definite purposes or ends of action which help maintain the association. [1] In the time which their academics would spare them, they sought activity i.e. techie pursuits; they were impelled to do something [1]. This eventually became a hobby (Note: established pattern of activity) with them and though their social circles were limited, the endless chain of relationships between persons [1] somehow got the word about their innovation out. (“Some friend of a friend told somebody’s friend about this internet guide…”) And before long, hundreds of people were accessing their guide from well beyond the Stanford trailer. [2] A culture of technological sophistication persisted in their closely-knit Internet community. [2] An institution which enabled...