thumb|Diagram, proposed by [[Henry Mintzberg, showing the main parts of organisation, including technostructure]]
Technostructure is the group of technicians, analysts within an organisation (enterprise, administrative body) with considerable influence and control on its economy. The term was coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in The New Industrial State (1967). It usually refers to managerial capitalism where the managers and other company leading administrators, scientists, or lawyers retain more power and influence than the shareholders in the decisional and directional process.
Historical context
The power struggle between the technostructure and the shareholders was first evoked by Thorstein Veblen in "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899), questioning who, among the managers and the shareholders, should control the enterprise. At the time and until the end of the 1980s, the shareholders, unable to effectively regroup and organise themselves, could not exert enough pressure to effectively counter the managerial decision-making process. After the Second World War, the rapid augmentation of shareholders further diluted their collective power. This was perceived, by Galbraith, as a divorce between the property of the capital and the direction of the enterprise.
Goals of the technostructure
Since the technostructure is composed of a hierarchical system of influential employees inside the enterprise, its primary goal is not to maximize their profits but rather survival, continuous growth and maximal size. While it must maintain acceptable relations with their shareholders, hegemonic growth is more beneficial to the technostructure.
According to Henry Mintzberg, a technostructure's influence is based on systems of expertise, but a technostructure gains power to the extent to which it can develop systems of bureaucratic control. Strong organisational ideology decreases the need for bureaucratic control and technostructure.