After reviewing administrative structures of multi-unit enterprises in the mid-nineteenth century France, I examined that of Schneider et Cie which had been defined by its 1913 organizational rules. Like most advanced structures of contemporary american firms, it had a central office comprised of heads of functional departments-operating, financial, industrial accounting, personnel and legal departments. Into the first operating department, however, were integrated manufacturing, sales and engineering offices, and the line of authority between the major manufacturing and the other two units, and also between the operating and the other departments was defined on a line-and-staff basis. This contrast to the american integrated industrial enterprises can be explained by the similarity in the object of organization building, that is coordination of production and marketing activities, as well as the difference, lack of its own sales network in the french enterprise.
Another and more important difference is found out in behavior at organization building. In contrast to american organization builders, Schneider's executives used data only for controling activities, so not for evaluating the performance of managers, and their range of authority and responsibility remained obscure in consequence. This discovery of another way of organization buildng suggests that creation of the general officers which constitute a major innovation in developing the decentralized, divisional structure was a result of the american way of organization building, because strictness in the delegation of authority to the division managers is assured by clearness of individual responsibility confined by objective figures. The schema of strategy and structure of A.D. Chandler, Jr., therefore, should be reconsidered.

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