The aim of this essay is to identify organizational and managerial paradigms within the management literature, and then adapt and apply them to an academic department, using, as the case example, a department of agricultural economics. Despite the paucity of literature dealing specifically with academic organization, we believe that there is much to be learned from the literature dealing with managerial organization that could be adapted to the academic setting in which an agricultural economics department operates. Furthermore, it is our belief that an understanding of the managerial organization literature will help to better understand the behavior of faculty and non-faculty employees within academic units.