ad-hocracy

ad-hocracy

those ORGANIZATIONS in which work roles and routines tend not to be specialized or standardized. Job content is not closely or formally defined. Thus individuals' tasks can be adapted as required to meet current exigencies. An important feature of this type of organization is that employees determine among themselves who does what when new tasks arise. Hence organizations of this sort can normally respond flexibly to new situations. However, a negative feature of organizations of this sort is the lack of strategy, to guide the organization; this results in the absence of clearly-defined or consistent policies to ensure achievement of organizational goals. See MECHANISTIC AND ORGANISMIC.