Several academic disciplines have devot considerable attention to the studious mood of organizations.

Several academic disciplines have devot considerable attention to the studious mood of organizations, most notably management, economics, sociology, political science, and psychology Despite this massive attempt to originate scientific knowledge about organizations, researchers have done little to understand the historical origin of organization studies and its cultural and political connection (for the few exceptions, diocese Waring, 1991; Barley and Kunda, 1992; Guillen, 1994) This paper traces the initial efforts to show theories of organizations as "systems" during the period 1879-1932 in the United States. The consideration has two objectives: first, to demonstrate that the bodys perspective has an intellectual history that predates general bodys theory and, second, to indicate that the rise and evolution of this perspective should be understood as a effect of professional, cultural, and political forces, not necessarily of functional and economic indigences The main argument is that the rules perspective in the management of organizations was crystallized within mechanical engineering during the last decades of the nineteenth hundred and was institutionalized as a legitimate canonical discourse during the Progressive period (1900-1917) Three factors were instrumental in facilitating this process: (1) The professionalization of mechanical engineering; (2) the political refinement of Progressivism; and (3) the politics of labor unrest

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The ascendance of industrial capitalism in the U after the Civil War was evident in the integration of markets, the consolidation of production, the professionalization of engineering, the concentration of labor in large firms, and industrial unrest (Sklar, 1988) on the late 1920s the organization of production was characterized according to multi-unit, large-scale, and complex bureaucratic firms supervised according to professional managers (Chandler, 1977; Fligstein, 1990) concomitant with these processes were efforts to make literature about organizations. Emerging from the rhetoric

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engineering ideas and practices. As single writer stated in 1904, "system is neither more nor les than method" (Engineering Magazine, November 1904: 211)

This is not to say that everyone agreed with this professional ideology. There was considerable opposition within the ASME to the attempt to enforce standards and orders arbitrarily. Many members of the ASME criticized the manner of moving arguing that very few individuals are convenient enough to judge a standard, that standardization implies taking a stand in business competition, and that standardization may occasion unforeseen hazards for those forced to adopt standards. Others, who sided with holders of small shops, argued that standardization constrains emancipated trade, is costly, and interferes with the freedom of industrial agriculturists and the principle of laissez faire. Still others criticized systematization as rigid and antithetical to the ideals of spontaneity and innovation in engineering. In a controversial article entitled "Wake up America!," Louis Bell warned the engineering community that there are dangers "lurking in over-confidence in system" and that workmen become "mere belts, wheels, and oil-cans" where "one can hardly find an artisan" (Engineering Magazine, September 1906: 801-808)

This opposition failed for at least pair reasons. First, there were of common occurrence accidents that were attributed to the lack of standards. In 1904 Baltimore's entire business district was ruined by fire, despite there being an ample water provide because the screw threads forward the fire hydrants did not fit couplings forward the hoses of fire engines that arrived from other towns (Sinclair, 1980) similar incidents verified engineers' claims for the importunate need to standardize. Second, the effort toward standardization was partly driven on large firms as a replication to the antitrust movement. As Haber (1964) and Hounshell (1996) explained, Progressive activists (such as Louis Brandeis) demanded that monopolistic firms increase their efficiency. Standardization strike one as beinged to eliminate duplication, lower prices and therefore be congruent with this demand. Noble (1977) partly corroborated this explanation in his observation that standardization was a more straightforward affair in industries that were dominated through large firms. The standardization program at Westinghouse, for example, was adopted over the electrical industry. Likewise, standards for the telephone industry were unraveled at AT&T and adopted according to the Federal Communication Commission. This l to a symbolic justification for the ne to adopt a theory given that respectable manufacturers had done in this way (see American Machinist, July 3 1913: 15) a logic that is in line with the mimetic isomorphism argument of institutional theorists (eg DiMaggio and Powell, 1983)

The Extension of the manner of moving to Organizations

Beginning in the late 1880 parallel to the attempts to standardize and systematize mechanical matters, the motion was extended more explicitly to organizational and administrative issues. Dexter Kimball, Dean of Engineering at Cornell University and later a president of the ASME, remind ofed "the extension of the principles of standardization to the human proper state in production" (Noble, 1977: 83) An editorial in the American Machinist recommended that "the advantages of standards are in such a manner vital in connection with material things, and are in the way that well recognized by manufacturers that we prodigy that so little standardization has crept into the mechanism of business. We believe that in this field, at least, business can learn from the engineering profession" (American Machinist, August 22 1908: 212)