Relationship of size of organisation to training system effectiveness

The issue of size as a determinant of structure has been the subject of an ongoing debate among organisational theorists for some time. There are as many supporters of size as a determinant of structure as critics. The supporters of the size imperative have argued that size influences structure in a number of ways. Blau (1970) found that increasing size promotes structural differentiation but at a decreasing rate. Pugh et a1 (1972) found in their study of forty-six organisations that increased size was associated with greater specialisation and formalisation. These findings of Pugh et al. were further supported by the research of John Child (1973) who extended the support for the findings. Child found that organisational size was related positively to formalisation, specialisation and vertical span of control, and negatively to centralisation. Meyer (1972) in his research found evidence of support for the size imperative on a longitudinal basis rather than as a causal relationship. His findings showed that size caused structure rather than structure causing size. The critics of size as a determinant of structure have challenged the findings on methodological grounds or have argued that size is a consequence rather than a cause of structure (Argyris: 1972); Mayhew et al: 1972; Aldrich: 1972; Hall et al: 1967; Geeraerts: 1984). The relationship of size and structure is not clear (Ford and Slocum: 1977) but size is 'important in predicting some dimensions of structuref (Robbins: 1987, p.110) . The emphasis of this research is on the study of the relationship between the training systems effectiveness criteria and the structural variable, size of organisation. The training system criteria are the measures of the functional aspects of the training system as perceived by the respondents in the survey.