Abstract The development of theories about organizations has been impeded by the absence of systematic studies of attributes across heterogeneous types of organizations. Apart from uncertainties in how to devise representative samples of organizations, in general, there are measurement uncertainties. Specifically, what is the reliability of measures of organizational attributes across diverse samples of organizations? This investigation entails a survey in a sample of 300 firms of three types: for-profit businesses, non-profit, and government agencies. Within each, five upper level functionaries will be asked a variety of questions about their organization's: size, specialization, values, and so on. Reliability coefficients will then be computed to assess the consistency among the five respondents within each surveyed organization. In addition, covariations among responses will be analyzed to indicate what type of functionary is best able to speak for an organization.
