Where does contingency collide?

In organization theory, a contingency is a feature of the situation on which the best way to organize depends: the claim is that there is no single best structure, and that a firm performs well when its internal arrangement fits the uncertainty and diversity of its markets and technology. Lawrence and Lorsch's 1967 Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations showed that effective firms in stable settings and effective firms in volatile settings were organized very differently, each matched to its conditions. The referent here is a relationship of fit between an organization and its environment, not the logical status of a proposition, a cell count in a data table, or a link between a behavior and its outcome.[1]

Unit

A match between an organizational structure and an environmental condition

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by relating measures of environmental uncertainty and structural differentiation to organizational performance

In modal logic and metaphysics, a contingency is a proposition or a state of affairs that is possibly true and possibly false: it is neither necessary, which would have to hold in every way things could have gone, nor impossible, which could hold in none. A contingent being is one that exists but might never have existed. Plantinga's 1974 The Nature of Necessity analysed these categories in terms of possible worlds, separating what is true in some worlds from what is true in all of them. The referent here is the status of a claim about how things could have been, not a fit between a firm and its market, a table of counts, or a rule linking action to reward.[2]

Unit

A proposition true in some possible situations and false in others

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Established by argument about whether a claim could have been otherwise, formalised with modal operators ranging over possible worlds

In statistics, a contingency table is a cross-tabulation that records how many cases fall into each combination of two or more categorical variables, and contingency is the degree to which those variables depart from independence. Karl Pearson's 1904 memoir On the Theory of Contingency and Its Relation to Association and Normal Correlation introduced the term and a coefficient for measuring this association from the table's counts. The referent here is a measured pattern of co-occurrence in categorical data, summarised by a chi-square statistic or a contingency coefficient, not an organizational fit, a logical status, or a behavioral rule.[3]

Unit

A grid of counts for combinations of categorical variables, and the association it reveals

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Quantified by a chi-square statistic computed on the table and by Pearson's contingency coefficient

In the experimental analysis of behavior, a contingency is the dependency between a response and its consequence: the arrangement by which a particular behavior produces, or is reliably followed by, a particular outcome such as a reinforcer. Skinner's 1963 Operant behavior set out how such contingencies of reinforcement shape the frequency of behavior, an analysis later carried into applied contingency management programs. The referent here is a lawful relation between what an organism does and what happens next, arranged and observed in real time, not a fit between a firm and its context, a logical status, or a count in a data table.[4]

Unit

The arranged dependency of a consequence on a specific response

Recovery means

Reversed by extinction, when the response no longer produces the consequence

Measured by

Studied by scheduling consequences for responses and recording the resulting changes in response rate