Organigraphs: drawing how companies really work.

Walk into any organization and you will get a snapshot of the company in action--people and products moving every which way. But ask for a picture of the company and you will be given the org chart, with its orderly little boxes showing just the names and titles of managers. Now there's a more revealing way to depict the people and operations within an organization--an approach called the organigraph. The organigraph is not a chart. It's a map that offers an overview of the company's functions and the ways that people organize themselves at work. Perhaps most important, an organigraph can help managers see untapped competitive opportunities. Drawing on the organigraphs they created for about a dozen companies, authors Mintzberg and Van der Heyden illustrate just how valuable a tool the organigraph is. For instance, one they created for Electrocomponents, a British distributor of electrical and mechanical items, led managers to a better understanding of the company's real expertise--business-to-business relationships. As a result of that insight, the company wisely decided to expand in Asia and to increase its Internet business. As one manager says, "It allowed the company to see all sorts of new possibilities." With traditional hierarchies vanishing and newfangled--and often quite complex--organizational forms taking their place, people are struggling to understand how their companies work. What parts connect to one another? How should processes and people come together? Whose ideas have to flow where? With their flexibility and realism, organigraphs give managers a new way to answer those questions.

Breast-conserving treatment of early breast cancer: survival and recurrence in community hospitals in southeastern Netherlands.

A total of 514 patients with malignant breast tumours (3 cm or less in diameter) and without evidence of distant metastases underwent tumour excision, axillary dissection and radiotherapy in nine community hospitals in southeastern Netherlands and a regional institute for radiotherapy (1981-1987). Follow-up ranged from 16 to 109 months, mean 50 months. The five-year overall survival was 87 per cent and the breast cancer specific survival 90 per cent. The five-year disease-free survival was 78 per cent. The local recurrence rate was 4.4 per cent at five years and the regional recurrence rate 4.5 per cent. Survival and local recurrence rate were in accordance with the early results reported by leading centres. The regional recurrence rate seemed to be somewhat higher. This study indicates that patients with early breast cancer can be treated effectively and safely with breast-conserving therapy in community hospitals.

A multi-centre study on completeness of urine collection in 11 European centres. I. Some problems with the use of creatinine and 4-aminobenzoic acid as markers of the completeness of collection.

We have studied the completeness of urine collections in 11 European centres. The completeness of collection was examined by questioning the participants, by calculating the ratio of observed to expected creatinine, and by measuring the recovery of p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) in the urine after administration of a 240 mg dose. The ratio of observed to expected creatinine is a fairly insensitive measure of undercollection. People who report that their collection is incomplete are likely to have collected incompletely to a considerable degree. It was concluded that the use of PABA in epidemiological studies is still questionable; overcollection cannot be detected by using PABA, and it appeared that people sometimes forget or refuse to take the capsules. It is also suggested that differences in the meal-time patterns between countries may interfere with the PABA recovery test.

Determinants of total and high density lipoprotein cholesterol in boys from Finland, The Netherlands, Italy, the Philippines and Ghana with special reference to diet.

We have studied the determinants of total and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol in young boys from five countries characterized by different lifestyles, dietary consumption profiles and mortality rates from coronary heart disease. All measurements including the estimation of dietary intake, physical activity, body mass index and the concentrations of total and HDL cholesterol were carefully standardized. The mean concentrations of total and HDL cholesterol were higher in the European boys (4.1-4.9 mmol/l and 1.45-1.57 mmol/l, respectively) than in the boys from Ghana and the Philippines (3.3-3.8 mmol/l and 0.93-1.10 mmol/l, respectively). A positive correlation was found between the concentration of total cholesterol and the intake of saturated fatty acids in four out of five countries. The concentration of HDL cholesterol was also related to various dietary variables in some of the groups. Using the regression coefficients from a multiple regression analysis on the pooled data, it could be calculated that on average 24 per cent of the inter-country differences in the levels of total cholesterol is explained by differences in the intakes of saturated fatty acids. Differences between the groups of the different countries in the intakes of carbohydrate explained on average 29 per cent of the differences in the concentrations of HDL cholesterol. The results obtained support the hypothesis that higher concentrations of total and HDL cholesterol are associated with western types of diets rich in saturated fatty acids and relatively poor in complex carbohydrates.