Organizations and their Environments

Two questions:

1) Can boundedly rational individuals be organized in such a way as to overcome their individual limitations?

2) How do we measure the dehumanizing effects of formal organization against their necessity and efficiency?

RATIONALITY

LOW HIGH

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RATIONAL ACTOR

LOW LIMITED PROBLEM (WEBERIAN

SOLVER BUREAUCRACY)

--organism --clock/mechanism

--survival --efficiency

--functionalism --Adam Smith

--homogeneous demands, --homogeneous demands

little change but needs to be responsive to

change

CONFLICT -------------------------------------------------------------

1) 'ANARCHY' COALITIONS

HIGH | 2) PROJECT TEAMS &

3) CULTURAL POWER

LEGITIMACY DYNAMICS

--conversation --conflict/struggle

--legitimacy --power/control

--Mead, symbolic interact’m --Marx

--heterogeneous demands, --heterogeneous

constant change/chaos demands, but constant over time

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CONTINGENCY THEORY: organizations take on different structures or have different internal dynamics based on the kind of ENVIRONMENT in which they operate

Key assumptions of each model:

1) rational actor / weberian bureaucracy

--calculable rules

--rational, logical, systematic ordering of tasks

--work done by specialists

--separation of person from office

--promotion on the basis of merit

--clear hierarchical authority

--written files

--evaluate policy options simultaneously

--commensurability among alternatives

2) the limited problem solver model

--bounded rationality (Herbert Simon)

--satisficing, not optimizing

--incremental search

--decomposition of tasks

--rules understood as "standard operating procedures"

--sop's as buffer from outside interference

--absorption of uncertainty (towards power model)

--org’l slack / fat

--THINK THE SQUIRREL!!!!!

3) the power/coalitions model

--from quasi-resolution of conflict to permanent latent conflict

--org'l goals seen as 'constraint sets'

--structure as residue of earlier battles

--pork-barreling

--cycling through preferences

--aim for agenda control

4a) the garbage can model

--goal definition is problematic: what do we want?

--'solutions in search of problems' – e.g. Tom Ridge

--focus on examining the overwhelming flow of demands through the organization—and flow of personnel

--superstitious learning – e.g. test taking

--decision avoidance, not resolution– personal e.g.: letting your email expire

4b) project teams—devolving decision-making power down to localities; a kind of anti-bureaucratic org’n

4c) cultural legitimacy: adopting strategies on the basis of the activities or choices of one's reference group, or to please others in the organization

“--institutional isomorphism”: imitating what other orgs are doing; e.g. the spate of reality TV shows(?)

--impression management: e.g., fancy brochures, ombudsmen, customer service hotlines (e.g. 9/11 hotline), websites for companies that don’t need them

--institutional ceremony – e.g. office parties

GENERAL SOCIOLOGICAL POINT:

IT IS IMPORTANT TO TRY TO SEE THE WORLD FOR HOW IT IS, NOT HOW WE EXPECT IT TO BE