The vortical environment: the fifth in the emery-trist levels of organizational environments

Abstract

This paper develops a conceptual scheme to extend the Emery-Trist levels of organizational environments to a fifth level consistent with premises laid in their milestone paper (Emery and Trist, Ig6S/Vol. III). The mounting evidence of maladaptive responses to turbulent environments is the second reason for undertaking this challenge. More specifically, the prevalence of stalemate, polarization, and monothematic dogmatism-the second-order maladaptive responses to the turbulent environment-leads to the frozen or clinched order of connectedness as well as unevenly turbulent conditions. Consequently, a different causal texture of an organizational environment can be added to the previous levels (placed, random; placid, clustered; disturbed-reactive; and turbulent).