An examination of some determinates of organizational structure in the United States and Kuwait

This study focuses on investigating the relationship between the contextual variables of size, technology and environment and the organizational structure variables of complexity, centralization, and formalization. The study also investigates differences between Kuwait and the U.S. in terms of the relationships between the above contextual and organizational structure variables.;Survey method was used to collect data from manufacturing organizations operating in the U.S. and Kuwait. Three hundred and twenty manufacturing organizations in the U.S., and 118 manufacturing organizations in Kuwait were contacted. The number of responding organizations in the U.S. was 48, and the number of responding organizations in Kuwait was 42. Correlation analysis method was used to determine the significance of the relationship between the structural and contextual variables in the two countries. Fisher's z transformation method was used to determine the significance of the differences between the U.S. and Kuwait in terms of the relationships between the structural and contextual variables. The results of the analysis indicate the following: (1) there is a negative association between organizational size and centralization of organizational structure in Kuwait; (2) there is a positive association between organizational size and the structural variables of formalization and complexity in the U.S. and Kuwait; (3) there is a negative association between organizational environment and the structural variables of centralization and formalization in the U.S. and Kuwait; (4) there is a negative association between organizational environment and complexity of organizational structure in the U.S.; (5) there is a positive association between organizational technology and centralization of organizational structure in the U.S.; (6) there is a positive association between organizational technology and formalization of organizational structure in the U.S. and Kuwait; (7) there is a positive association between organizational technology and complexity of organizational structure in Kuwait; (8) U.S. organizations have lower level of centralization and higher level of complexity than Kuwaiti organizations; (9) there are no significant differences between the U.S. organizational structure and context relationships.;The findings indicate that there are no significant differences between the U.S. and Kuwait in terms of the relationships between organizational structure and its context. These findings provide additional support to the universalistic theory of organizational structure.;However, a t-test shows that there is a significant difference between the U.S. and Kuwait in the level of centralization among the responding firms' organizational structure. Kuwaiti organizations have higher level of centralization than U.S. organizations. This finding supports the claims of cultural theories of organizational structure that organizations in high power distance societies are expected to have higher levels of centralization than those in low power distance societies (Hofstede, 1984; Sekaran and Snodgrass, 1988).