The document outlines an assignment to draft a court management policy proposal addressing case backlog and delays in hearings within a specific U.S. state court system. As a senior policy analyst, the respondent must consider factors such as budget constraints, political instability, and the effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution options, particularly for juvenile offenders. The proposal must weigh the benefits and costs of programs like victim-offender mediation to enhance the court's efficiency without requiring additional funding.

1. Unit 4 - Individual Project
Assignment Details
Assignment Description
Key Assignment Draft
The objective of this assignment is to enable you to demonstrate
your ability to develop a court management policy proposal that
addresses the key factors that should be considered to ensure
that legal requirements and best practices in management are
observed. You will craft a policy proposal designed to address
problems of case backlog and excessive delay in calendaring of
hearings that have resulted from the growing workload in state
courts. You will select the U.S. state court system of your
choosing as opposed to a hypothetical or generic state court in
an effort to make this deliverable more realistic and to enable
the use of information for your research that may be available
through actual court administration offices (e.g., via their Web
sites or publicly available research reports).
The environment in which this policy proposal is being
generated is one characterized by several realities:
State budgets for managing necessary services are shrinking.
The political environment is somewhat unstable because of lack
of consensus on how to address various types of social
problems, including crime. Property-related crime is on the rise,
including collateral offenses against persons.
Court systems are so overwhelmed that there is growing public
perception that public access to timely dispute resolution has
become severely constrained. Correctional facilities are

2. over-crowded, and problems of recidivism have accelerated.
Plea bargaining and out-of court settlement of cases has
increased in part as a way to side-step lengthy and expensive
court trials. Certain alternative dispute resolution programs
have been operating successfully in many circumstances and
jurisdictions.
You will produce a policy proposal from the perspective that
you are a senior policy analyst employed by a state’s
Administrative Office of the Courts. In this role as a senior
policy analyst, you have been assigned to draft a proposal for
the court administrator recommending viable options based on
the legislature’s interests and objectives. The background
information that you have been given by your employer is that
the Judicial Committee of the State Legislature is very
interested in a policy proposal that weighs options for new
programs and/or approaches to dispute resolution designed to
satisfy the legislature’s stated objectives to do the following:
Reduce case backlog
Shorten the average time for court hearings to be calendared
and for decisions to be rendered
Avoid the expense of expanding the number of court houses,
judges, and associated court staff and/or detention facilities and
associated staff Minimize the need for funding of new programs
Consider the viability of “community burden­sharing” through
partnerships with private (where private includes both profit
and nonprofit) organizations and resources
In addition, the judicial committee has specified that it would
like to look at a policy proposal that focuses on dispute
resolution options related to juvenile offenders that address the
legislature’s objectives as a “pilot test” of new approaches to
managing court-related services in the existing environment.
Thus, the court administrator has asked that the policy proposal
be narrowly focused on the juvenile justice division of the state
court system.

3. The policy proposal should exclude considerations of whether
any proposed new programs or expansions of existing programs
meet existing statutory requirements. For purposes of this
project, you are to assume that once the proposal is presented to
the Judicial Committee of the State Legislature, that committee
will charge the Office of Legislative General Counsel to
determine what, if any, statutory changes would be necessary.
Questions the proposal would need to address include the
following:
Would it cost the state less to implement a victim offender
mediation (VOM) program for juvenile offenders than it would
to expand the courts and corrections staff and facility
infrastructure?
Would it take the state less time to implement a program such
as this than it would to expand the courts and corrections staff
and facility infrastructure? To what extent could a VOM
program reduce court case backlog and thereby shorten the
average time between arrest and case disposition?
What is the “track record” of one or more comparable VOM
program(s)?
What are the social benefits and social costs of a VOM program
for juvenile offenders both to the offenders themselves and to
the larger community? Are there particular types of cases that
are appropriate, as opposed to others that the legislature might
want to exclude?
What are the major challenges that will be faced by the
Administrative Office of the Courts in implementing this
proposed policy in terms of the following: Program
development
Training and credentialing of mediators
“Selling” it to potentially supportive community resources that
could become partners with the state in this effort Case flow

4. and records management
Security issues related to cases being mediated outside of court
facilities
Please submit your assignment.
For assistance with your assignment, please use your text, Web
resources, and all course materials.
PUB 503 ML:Theories, Principles, & Practice of Public
Administration
Exam Questions
1. What is a closed model is as relates to an open model of an
organization? Identify at least five principal features of each
design and how do they fit in to the day-today operations of a
public organization? Give at least three examples.
2. What is Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? Explain each
step and give examples of each.
3. What is Fredrick Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory?
Explain and give at least two examples of what is an “extrinsic”
and “intrinsic” dimension of this theory.
4. What engages workers? What disengages workers? Give at
least two examples of each.
5. What is the fabric that keeps the organization together?
Explain how data, information, and knowledge keeps the
organization together. Give at least two examples of each.
6. What is the difference between position power and personal
power? As a leader in a public organization which one would
you prefer? Explain

5. The Fabric of Organizations: Forces
1
1
How do organizations adapt to the fury of forces that roil in
them and in the society surrounding them?
To answer this question, we need to weave the threads of theory
into a fabric.
Sometimes they weave a tapestry, other times a drop cloth.
2
Data, Information, And Organizational Knowledge
Information is processed data.
The accumulation of information is knowledge.
Knowledge that means something to us is what reinforces our
behavior
or it’s what changes us.
Organizational knowledge, or organizational intelligence, is not
only the process of collecting yet one more datum to complete a
puzzle, but,
it is also a process of interpreting data to solve mysteries.
Despite the fact that todays organizations have many times more
data, Americans are any more knowledgeable about public
affairs than they were in 1950.
3

6. Dealing with the Uncertainty of Knowledge
One of the more intriguing ways in which organizations distort
knowledge is called uncertainty absorption, whereby
information that
initially is regarded as uncertain and “soft” by the people who
collect it becomes increasingly certain and “hard” as it is sent
up through the decision-making hierarchy.
In closed, centralized organizations, information distortion
often is intertwined with personal power.
Folks, like everyone else is afraid to tell the leader the truth.
Even when people trust each other and are working as a team,
both of which are emblematic of the open, decentralized
organization,
information still may fail to reach the people who need it and
can act on it.
In decentralized organizations, the pathology appears to be less
one of fear and more one of fumbling.
4
Information and the Hierarchy
If knowledge changes us, then it is disconcerting to know that
organizations change knowledge.
It also creates “turf wars”
It appears that bureaucratic jealousies seems to be particularly
present in public organizations, whether centralized or
decentralized, concerns “turf,” or agency rivalries that
revolve around the control of areas of responsibility.
Unfortunately their is no panacea for curing pathologies of
organizational information.
We do know, however, that there is a model of hierarchical

7. distortion:
the more hierarchical layers there are, the more organizational
subunits that are charged with similar responsibilities,
and the more that information is “handled” as it is passed up,
down, and around the bureaucracy, the more likely it is that the
information will be delayed and distorted, and the less likely
that it will reach someone who can intelligently act on it.
5
Organizational Knowledge and Strategic Decision Making
All of us are inundated by data and we often are unable to
salvage from this flood the knowledge that we need to make
good decisions.
In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive
process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of
action among several alternative possibilities.
Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing
alternatives based on the values, preferences and beliefs of the
decision-maker.
In reality no one person could ever have enough information to
make rational strategic decisions.
It appears that market and other environmental forces provided
the best information for decision making.
6
Information as Symbol
“The acts of seeking and using information in decisions have
important symbolic value” because they cloak their actors with
legitimacy, “a necessary property of effective decisions.”
Hence, the “conspicuous consumption of information,” whether
done consciously or not, “is a sensible strategy for decision

8. makers” because their decisions not only are more readily
implemented, but organizations with elaborate information
systems also house more effective decision makers than those
without them.
The symbolism syndrome seems to be particularly present in
public administration;
the consumption of information is “more conspicuous in policy
making than in engineering,
more conspicuous in the public sector than in the private,
more conspicuous at the top of an organization than at the
bottom.”
7
Strategic Decision Making In Organizations
Research on how information is used in decision making implies
that the process is less than rational.
And, to an extraordinary extent, it is not rational.
The principal reason underlying this darker side of decision
making is that the people who make decisions,
like all people, are often less than logical.
All human beings make decisions on the basis of their decision
premises, or the unique values and viewpoints held by each
organizational member, and on
which he or she bases every decision he or she makes regarding
the organization.
For example: The values of profitability, competitiveness, and
customer orientation have a greater influence on business
decisions;
in public organizations, values such as legitimacy, lawfulness,
accountability, and impartiality play a larger role.”
Note: Every decision maker is boxed in by mental and social
bounds it can lead to a form of Dysrationalia or the inability to
think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence.

9. 8
Bounded Rationality
It appears that the human species is beset by bounded
rationality; that is, the reasoning powers of the human mind are
bound to a small and simple plot compared with
the vastness and complexity of the territory spanned by the
problems that human minds are expected to comprehend and
solve.
Research buttresses the reality of the bounded brain.
The human mind can distinguish a maximum of just seven
categories of phenomena at a time, but beyond that number
loses track.
Emotion colors decision making. A decision is first made as an
emotional response to one’s environment, and this is especially
the case when there have been recent and dramatic events in it;
consequently, decision makers often misstate the problem to be
solved.
If anger is among the decision maker’s emotional responses,
the likelihood of unethical decisions increases, but if fear or
little emotion are present, then ethical decisions become more
possible.
Although this emotional phase is sometimes criticized as an
impediment to rational decision making, emotion is central to
decision making; people who cannot process emotions also
struggle to make decisions.
9
Bounded Rationality and “Satisficing” Decisions
More rational responses to environmental events overlay the

10. initial emotional ones.
When this phase is reached, decision makers usually are
overcautious, favoring stability over change, and tend to prefer
information that protects them against anticipated losses over
information that they can use to make gains.
“Bounded rationality results in suboptimal or what can be called
“satisficing” decisions. If not optimal, then, what are they?
It’s those choices that tend to satisfied the makers of decisions
and sufficed enough for the organization to get by.
Many decision makers typically use heuristic thinking (or “rules
of thumb”), which is invariably flawed, and base their decisions
on their perception of the status quo, rather than
on an objective comparison of known variables. Options that
provide quick returns generally are preferred to those that delay
them, even though delay may bring superior returns.
“In short, our brains are naturally lazy.”
10
Victims of Groupthink
Regrettably, in addition to their own bounded minds, decision
makers are limited by other factors as well.
Because stress accompanies decision making, avoidance and
denial are frequently the handmaidens of the decision process.
When stressed decision makers are making decisions within the
context of a tightly knit in-group,
“groupthink” is the consequence.
Groupthink is an over-conformity among decision makers that
displaces critical thinking, and
“is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions
directed against out-groups.”
11
The Making of Good Decisions

11. Vigilant Decision Making Vigilant decision making consists of
employing ways to encourage the group to participate more
effectively in making good decisions and to minimize
groupthink. These group-improving means include:
employing a large number of techniques to encourage dissent;
bringing in “representatives of people in the organization with
different points of view,” rather than relying solely on “trusted
staff”;
critically assessing the costs and risks of each choice;
and plumbing diverse sources of knowledge.
Fast Decision Making Not only do good decision makers gather
more data and counsel more extensively than poor decision
makers when making decisions,
they also develop more alternatives to solve problems.
Counter-intuitively, even though these activities are time
consuming, they nevertheless make their decisions more rapidly
than do those who do not engage in them.
These unexpected patterns of information-sensitive, advice-
seeking, option-generating—yet speedy—decision making lead
to “superior performance” by executives.
12
Thinking Dispositions
Thinking dispositions are rational, psychological, decision-
making touchstones that, surprisingly, do not correlate, or, at
best, only weakly so, with cognitive ability. They include:
a capacity for thoughtful reflection;
digging out information before deciding;
trying to match one’s degree of certainty with the strength of
the evidence;
examining one’s biases and correcting for them;
a willingness to wait until good solutions become apparent;
and consciously countering confirmation bias, or the

12. regrettable reality that first impressions “are remarkably
perseverant and unresponsive to new input, even when such
input logically negates the original bias of the impressions.”
As one ages the likelihood of one using thinking dispositions
lessens, and they are partially replaced by a greater reliance on
bias and irrationality;
the consequence is riskier decisions.
Note: Those public administrators who have established
reputations for excellence when confronted with making a
particular type of tough decision were much less likely
to consult any advisers and to engage in any “information-
gathering of some sort.
13
The Bounds of Organizational Rationality
Just as the rationality of organizational members is bounded, so
is the rationality of organizations themselves.
Types of Organizational Decision Making How an organization
makes decisions depends on whether its stakeholders agree or
disagree about what their organization should do (that is, its
goals),
and agree or disagree about what causes the attainment of those
goals.
Efficiency and Analytical Decision Making In organizations in
which everyone agrees on organizational objectives and how to
fulfill them, efficiency is readily apparent.
Because efficiency is obvious in businesses, analytical decision
making is dominant; there is little or no debate about cause and
effect, and decisions are made on the basis of shared
perceptions.
Effectiveness and Judgmental Decision Making In many public
and non-profit organizations efficiency is very difficult to
determine.
Effectiveness, or an organization’s ability to fully complete its

13. tasks, however, is usually easier to assess.
Note: In organizations, in which members still agree about
goals but are uncertain about how to achieve them,
decisions are made judgmentally.
14
Compromising, or Bargaining, Decision Making
In those organizations in which members believe that they know
what causes what, but who disagree about organizational goals,
neither efficiency nor effectiveness is clear.
So what is a decider to do?
Under these conditions, compromising, or bargaining, decision
making is in order.
The classic example is when any legislative decision maker
agrees that a proposed law will cause certain outcomes, but
disagree about the desirability of those outcomes.
Inspirational and/or Authoritarian Decision Making
What sort of strategies can an organization use when its
decision makers disagree about both goals and causality?
In some organizations in the third sector seem to exemplify this
combination, and their members are not merely uncertain about
whether or not they are achieving their goals;
they are uncertain even about what those goals are.
Under these circumstances, inspirational decision making, or
authoritarian decision making, or both, are favored.
Inspirational and authoritarian decision making are employed in
these organizations because the alternative could be chaos;
when decision makers are unable to discern efficiency and
effectiveness, rational (i.e., analytical), or even partially
rational (i.e., judgmental), decision-making “strategies” simply
are not possible.
“Inspiring” the organization, and/or cracking down on
dissidents are the only decision-making options left.
Mismatching Organizations and Decision Making
Unfortunately, in nearly six out of ten strategic decisions,

14. decision makers select a strategy that is inappropriate to the
kinds of bounds that constrain their organization.
15
Organized Anarchies and the Garbage Can of Decision Making
The messiest forms of decision making—that is, judgmental,
compromising, inspirational, and authoritarian decision
making—all associate with public or nonprofit organizations.
These messy methods characterize organized anarchies, which
are composed of a “loose collection of ideas” in which
participants do not define their preferences very precisely and
do not fully understand what their organization actually does.
Organized anarchies use an erratic, irrational decision-making
process that is a figurative
“garbage can.”
In making decisions, the organized anarchy “bumbles along, and
discovers preferences through action more than it
acts on the basis of preferences,” resulting in decisions that are
“a collection of choices looking for problems … solutions
looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and
decision makers looking for work.”
16
Organized Anarchies
The messiest forms of decision making—that is, judgmental,
compromising, inspirational, and authoritarian decision
making—
all associate with public or nonprofit organizations.
These messy methods characterize organized anarchies, which
are composed of a “loose collection of ideas” in which
participants do not define their preferences very precisely
and do not fully understand what their organization actually
does.

15. In making decisions, the organized anarchy “bumbles along, and
discovers preferences through action more than it acts on the
basis of preferences,”
resulting in decisions that are “a collection of choices looking
for problems … solutions looking for issues to which they
might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work.”
17
The Implementation of Strategic Decisions
Just as making big decisions is beset by bounded rationality, so
is implementing them.
Studies found that decision makers rely on four basic
implementation tactics these are:
persuasion,
nudging,
participation,
and intervention.
When making decisions, public administrators “place too great
an emphasis on bargaining …
but they do seem to understand the limits of analysis,”
Public administrators believe that negotiating, in and of itself,
legitimizes decisions, and thereby creates, unfortunately,
“a false perception of support for a decision.”
18
Persuasion consumes the most time of all four tactics, and
seems to be favored by public administrators, who spend an
inordinate amount of their time talking or nudging subordinates
and peers;
“this talk accomplishes administration.”
“Nudge” is shorthand for the framing of policies and procedures

16. in ways (such as by simplifying choices and sending reminders)
that more effectively persuade people to adopt and implement
them.
Participation refers to stakeholders cooperatively implementing
the decision. The broader and deeper the participation, the
greater the rate of successful adoption of the decision.
Participative decision making is markedly present in
government agencies.
Intervention is used to justifying a need for change, establishing
new performance standards,
demonstrating the feasibility of the decision and the
improvements that will result from it.
Note: In contrast to executives in other sectors, those in
government appear to rely heavily on intervention, overcoming
“bureaucratic obstacles” by
introducing training programs, demonstrating the benefits of
new policies, consulting with stakeholders, and persistence to
get their way.
19
A Complex and Slow Decision Process
Governments’ decision makers must deal with vastly more, and
more complex, decision criteria that are far broader in scope
than those in business,
who are measurably more likely to focus on a single and
straightforward datum—that of financial performance—when
making decisions.7
Public executives who have business experience view
governments as conservative cultures that are slow to change,
and research suggests
that decisions are indeed made more slowly in public
organizations than in private ones.

17. Slower decision making may be a product of the fact that
civilian agencies are less likely to take risks than private
companies,
regardless of the organizational mission.
It is noted that governments’ decision makers swirl sporadically
through a “vortex” of intense meetings and conversations with
each other,
and are much more likely than those in private organizations to
engage in both formal and informal interaction with others when
making decisions.
20
Consulting with Whom?
Public administrators network extensively with internal “peers
and underlings” when making decisions. This is a good thing:
A thorough review concludes that “the greatest organizational
gains from employee participation [in decision making] may
come from producing better decisions.”
In marked contrast to business managers, however, when public
administrators make decisions they often “discount networking”
with “external constituencies,” notably agency clients, citizens,
and oversight bodies. This is not such a good thing.
If clients and overseers were more involved in public
administrators’ decision making, it would “improve their
chances of success.”
21
The Decision Making Quality
Decision making in public organizations, in contrast to its
practice in private ones, seems to be:
a process that relies more on bargaining than analysis;

18. is slower, sloppier, and murkier;
is more intense, constrained, and complicated;
is more consultative, but containing elements of groupthink;
and is risk averse, but unwittingly risky.
In one of the few attempts to match the decision-making
techniques used by each sector with the quality and successful
implementation of the decisions made, it was determined that
government managers
who relied primarily on soliciting the views of experts and used
hard data made the highest quality decisions.
Obviously, decision makers who ignore their clients and bosses
can produce decisions that “can be very dangerous” to the
decision makers,
especially “if an oversight body opposes” their decisions. Yet,
this may be precisely the decision-making situation in public
organizations.
22
Decision Making Roles in Nonprofit Organizations
It must be noted that public agencies are far more influenced by
factors in their external environments than are private
companies and nonprofit associations.
Consultative Decision Making
Nonprofit strategic decision makers appear to be uniquely
consultative; they “recycle” decisions back to earlier stages in
the decision-making process, and take many more “steps” than
in the private sector.
Conflictive Decision Making Conflicts break out earlier in the
decision-making process of non-profit organizations than in for-
profit ones, and third-sector executives—who believe that
conflict defines issues more sharply and thus produces better
decisions—are less averse to conflict than are their corporate
counterparts, who think just the opposite.
Riskier Decision Making Third-sector administrators are

19. especially fond of throwing the dice, and have been known to
radically change the very missions of their organizations if they
thought it useful, an option not available to public agencies and
a limited one for private companies.
Managers and professionals in the independent sector report
that their organization encourages them “to take risks,”
compared with federal administrators and for-profit managers.
Nonprofit employees also are much less concerned with
compensation and job security than are those in government and
the private sector.
With the obvious exception of the public sector’s dominance of
life-or-death decision making, these characteristics strongly
suggest that decision making in the third sector is a riskier
business than in the other two.
23
Position Vs Personal Power
There are two types of administrative or leadership power that
facilitate subordinates’ acceptance of their executives’ roles.
One is position power, a category that includes four “power
bases.” They are:
Control, specifically of information and the work environment;
reward power, or the positive recognition of another;
coercive power, or the capacity to punish;
and legitimate power, or the acceptance of the leader by others.
The other kind of power is personal power, and this includes
three power bases:
Expert power, or the perception that the leader is
knowledgeable;
referent power, or the personal attraction that a leader holds for
others;
and charisma, or the leader’s ability and will to exert great
change.

20. Corporate managers exercise a very high level of control over
the critical positional power bases of rewards, coercion, and
legitimacy, but public administrators
have little, if any, control over them and are reduced to relying
on personal power bases to lead.
It is noteworthy in this regard that public employees perceive
their executives to be far more inspirational and personally
involved with them than do corporate employees.124
24
The Mechanisms of Control
Once administrators have established their power bases, then
they can exercise greater power. They do this through six major
“mechanisms of administrative control.”
These mechanisms include:
supervision, or the direct observation and provision of feedback
to subordinates;
input control, or the cutting or increasing of resources to
subunits;
behavior control, or the structuring by administrators of
individual and group activities;
output control, or the evaluation of subunits’ productivity;
selection-socialization control, or the internalization of selected
norms and values in subunits;
environmental control, or the constraints imposed by the
organization’s external task environment (public administrators
implement environmental control by obtaining feedback from
their communities).
Public administrators use all six mechanisms in surprisingly
broad and balanced ways.
25

21. Public Organization: A Dynamic Environment
The tasks that public administrators must administer are far
more “complex” than those managed by private managers,
rendering public administration all the more difficult.
The Whirlwind Public administrators have little control over
how they use their time, and are more “rushed” to get things
done. They are far more consumed with managing crises, and
devote far more time to doing so, than their private-sector
counterparts.
More effective public administrators are more flexible and
accord scant effort to “time management” and planning than
less effective public administrators.
The Pressures To “accomplish” their convoluted and ill-defined
missions, public administrators must confront many more
“conflicting environmental demands” and “external
stakeholders” than business managers.
26
Lessons Learned
Public administrators have learned some practical lessons about
how to administer well. Here are the main ones.
■ Hire with care, and be alert to an employee’s performance
during the probationary period.
■ Engage new employees with a welcoming first-year program
that introduces them to the agency’s culture.
■ Communicate to build trust. Ask employees for their feedback
and advice, and tell them whether you used it; meet regularly
with each employee to review progress; and lead by example.
■ Hold employees accountable for their performance.
■ Closely link recognition, rewards, and sanctions to
performance.
■ Give all employees the opportunity to grow and develop.
27

22. Change Agents And Their Technology
Governments are not associated with swift-paced change. As
one study put it, “high-publicness organizations … show a slow
change rate” and “a low rate of change.”138 But public
organizations do change.
Without question, the organization’s technology, or what the
organization does and how it does it, is central to what any
organization is, and changing its technology causes systemic
change throughout any organization.
However, legislatures rarely, if ever, allow a government
agency to change what it does, and public technology is itself
resistant to change.
Executives who have served in the private and public sectors
believe, accurately, that, compared to business, government and
nonprofits are driven by processes.
Changing a process in any organization involves extensive
convincing and coordinating, and is a much slower affair than
changing a product.
Note: It appears that public managers are more change-oriented
than managers in business organizations.
28
Paladins of Public Change
Who is more likely to cause change in governments—elected
officeholders, nonprofit public-interest groups, agency clients,
citizens, or stodgy old bureaucrats?
The bureaucrats, hands down. “Despite controls … career public
servants” at all levels of government “do innovate,” and initiate
innovations far more frequently than any other group.
The environment that surrounds and suffuses the public
organization appears to be the primal engine of its change.
All legislatures pass laws that change their governments’

23. agencies.
Some statutes radically open public organizations to all manner
of penetration by innumerable environmental forces, and to an
extent that is unheard of in the other sectors.
29
Who or What Pressures or Impedes Change?
Government agencies are pressured to change when specific
elements in their environments change.
Agencies that are dominated by professionals are pushed to
adjust when outside observers perceive a loss of professional
competence;
those that are protected by patrons, such as legislators, are
threatened with change when they lose their patrons;
and those that have endlessly churned the same old
unresponsive rut suddenly are challenged by new and sustained
expectations.
Pressure to change is no guarantee of change. Frustratingly,
even when public administrators proactively address these
challenges, change still remains stymied unless
the agency’s leaders can gain “the support of oversight bodies,”
and then only when agencies “are allowed to be responsive” to
environmental demands. “
Creating such arrangements is always difficult and often
impossible.”1
30
Laws That Can Impede Change
Sunshine laws require that agencies provide, with some
restrictions, to those who request it any information that they
have about anyone and anything.

24. The federal government, all the states, and the District of
Columbia have sunshine laws.
The federal sunshine law is the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) of 1966, which exempts information pertaining to
national security, citizen privacy, and Congress.
Some 700,000 FOIA requests, on average, are received and
processed each year by all agencies, at a cost of more than $480
million.
To meet an FOIA request, federal administrators must execute
no fewer than fifteen distinct tasks, and it takes from ten to 100
median days to do so. This is very expensive.
Many public agencies are legislatively required to appoint
advisory committees that recommend policies.
In Washington alone, there are about a thousand active
committees in any given year composed of more than 70,000
members advising around fifty agencies, at an annual cost of
more than $350 million, averaged over ten years.
31
Federal Rulemaking and Special Interest Power
Federal agencies spend, on average, about four years (ranging
from one year to an astonishing fourteen) to make a rule.
This vast amount of time implies that agencies must deal with
formidable forces when making rules, and they do—
specifically, special interests.
Special interests view agency rulemaking with great seriousness
because an agency’s “rule” can amount to a major public policy.
Agency rulemaking is relatively unconstrained by the president,
Congress, and the courts;
it is interests that wield the power.
These interests are effective.
Federal agencies alter 49 percent of their decisions in favor of
lobbyists purely as a result of the formal notice-and-comment

25. process.
Even allowing for a bit of braggadocio, it is nonetheless notable
that business interests enjoying a “disproportionate influence
over rule-making outputs.”
Perhaps because federal rule makers are concerned about the
disproportionate influence of special interests, the feds fail to
notify the public that it can comment them.
32
State Rulemaking and Special Interest Power
All states and the District of Columbia have administrative
procedure acts,
and they open agencies to a startling quantum of special interest
power.
Special interests’ general influence with state agencies that are
making rules is impressive;
77 percent of state lobbyists submit comments on proposed
rules and even “help draft regulations,” and more than half
engage “in regulatory negotiations.”
Administrative procedure acts are crucial in both the access and
influence of special interests.
The greater the access to state agencies enabled by an
administrative procedure act, the higher that agency heads will
rank the impact of interest groups on their agencies’
rulemaking, an opinion fortified by fact:
“As the interactions between … agencies and third parties
increase, so too does the influence of these parties over agency
policies and decisions.”
Access brings results. “Interest group power … is significantly
influential” in an estimated 80 percent of state agency
rulemaking.
As with federal patterns, business interests dominate the states’
notice-and-comment process, and benefit most from it relative
to other groups.

26. 33
Environmental Forces On The Inner Workings Of Government
Perhaps of greater impact on the inner workings of government
agencies are not laws, but rather environmental forces.
Environmental forces are those situations and relationships that
influence decisions makers located in government, it’s
legislatures, which in turn
influence the distribution of budgets, make laws and have an
obvious impact on public bureaucracies.
Even in these pure power relationships, there are unspoken
subtleties.
For example: States with congressional committee members who
oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency receive
much larger disaster-relief funds than
those states without them, even though the emergencies are of
comparable severity.
Note: The Internal Revenue Service audits far fewer individual
income tax returns from taxpayers in congressional districts that
are important electorally to the president
or which have representatives on key oversight committees.
Other environmental forces do not even know that they are
forces.
Whether they are rough or refined, environmental forces change
the accountability, structure, hierarchy, procedures, and
autonomy of public organizations far more profoundly than
those pressures that alter private and nonprofit organizations.
34
What Is A Bureaucracy?

27. Bureaucracy refers to both a body of non-elective government
officials and an administrative policy-making group.
Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration
managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials.
Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any
large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned.
The public administration in many countries is an example of a
bureaucracy, but so is the centralized hierarchical structure of a
business firm.
Standard dictionaries generally agree on the following:
Bureaucracy is a combination of organizational hierarchy and
red tape.
Hierarchy refers to layers of administrative units ranked one
above the other. Red tape is a large number of reports, forms,
procedures, and, most especially, rules.
Hierarchy and red tape are symbiotic.
Hierarchy produces red tape: “the larger the number of
hierarchical levels, the greater the demand for explicit rules.”
And red tape produces hierarchy: legislative rulemaking adds to
“the structural complexity of bureaucratic action” in all sectors.
35
How Much Hierarchy Is Too Much?
Two-fifths of federal employees at all ranks say that, in their
agencies, there are “too many layers of supervisors and
managers” between them and top management, compared
to less than a fourth each of business and nonprofit employees,
Anthony Downs’s famous law of hierarchy contends that the
taller (i.e., the more hierarchical layers) and more complex the
hierarchy,
the more effort and expense that are required for “internal”

28. administration to the detriment of “external” achievement.
In the public sector, hierarchy can both undermine and improve
organizational effectiveness
Where hierarchy contributes most to public organizational
effectiveness is in those agencies that are playing defense.
Greater hierarchy associates with centralized decision making,
which, in turn, “works best” in defending the organization
against external threats.
Lesser hierarchy correlates with decentralized decision making,
which works best when agencies are prospecting for new
opportunities in their environments.
36
Ribbons of Red Tape & Bureaucratic Rules
Public organizations are wrapped in more red tape than are
private and nonprofit ones (the independent sector has the least
red tape)—ribbons more—
that are spooled out almost entirely by external sources, such as
special interests and legislatures.
Reams of Reports
A basic building block of red tape is reports.
The annual cost of reports are millions of dollars. Many go
unread by congressional members and staffers, one staffer
stated,
“We used them as doorstops.” Literally.
Nevertheless, reports seem to stick around; one analysis
concluded that only about 6 percent could be usefully
abandoned,
although Congress has identified only six-tenths of 1 percent
that could be eliminated or consolidated.
Rules Rule, a bureaucracy’s concentrate on the centrality of
rules in red tape can have the same or larger social impact

29. as a legislature’s laws.
It seems that the amount of government rules more than doubles
every decade because “the stock of rules expands due to a
powerful internal dynamic:
that is, rules breed rules.
37
Green Tape
Rules need not be “red tape” in the sense that they foment
negativity among public administrators.
Rules can be green tape, or well-formulated regulations that
facilitate “higher rule abidance” and, thereby, greater agency
efficiency.
“Compliance with rules … can be an essential element of both
a project’s success and its accountability.”
Written (not spoken) rules that are not overly controlling,
whose purposes are understood by stakeholders, and which
clearly work effectively,
“significantly correlate” with green tape. Consistency in
applying rules, oddly, seems not to matter.
The most effective rules are neither overly vague nor overly
prescriptive, in that those “moderate” rules that balance
flexibility of implementation with clear guidelines
are the most effective and productive.
In fact, when rules violate either of these ends,
the possibility of public corruption is enhanced.
Note: Rigid rules and inflexible procedures help assure that
bureaucrats and citizens alike are treated fairly, impartially, and
equally.
In a word, red tape can provide justice, an idea that is central to
democratic government.
38

30. 39
The Threads of Organization: Theories
1
1
Because organizations are different creatures to different
people, organizations are “defined” according to the contexts
and perspectives peculiar to the person doing the defining.
Nevertheless, we can, at least, posit certain characteristics that
are common to all organizations.
Organizations:
■ are purposeful, complex human collectivities;
■ are characterized by secondary (or impersonal) relationships;
■ have specialized and limited goals;
■ are characterized by sustained cooperative activity;
■ are integrated within a larger social system;
■ provide services or products to their environment; and
■ are dependent upon exchanges with their environment.
Organization theorists, using essentially this list of
characteristics but stressing different items in it,
have produced a vast body of literature on the nature of
organizations.

31. 2
THE CLOSED MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONS
Closed model of organizations, which goes by many names are
Bureaucratic, hierarchical, formal, rational, and mechanistic.
Characteristics of the Closed Model of Organizations We rely
on a classic analysis in listing the principal features of the
closed model of organizations:
■ Routine tasks occur in stable conditions.
■ Task specialization (i.e., a division of labor) is central.
■ Means (or the proper way to do a job) are emphasized.
■ Conflict within the organization is adjudicated from the top.
■ “Responsibility” (or what one is supposed to do, one’s formal
job description) is emphasized.
■ One’s primary sense of responsibility and loyalty is to the
bureaucratic subunit to which one is assigned (such as the
accounting department).
■ The organization is perceived as a hierarchic structure (that
is, the structure “looks” like a pyramid).
■ Knowledge is inclusive only at the top of the hierarchy (in
other words, only the chief executive knows everything).
■ Interaction between people in the organization tends to be
vertical (that is, one takes orders from above and transmits
orders below), but not horizontal.
■ The style of interaction is directed toward obedience,
command, and clear superior/subordinate relationships.
■ Loyalty and obedience to one’s superior and the organization
generally are emphasized, sometimes at the expense of
performance.
■ Prestige is “internalized,” that is, personal status in the
organization is determined largely by one’s formal office and
rank.
Note: No organizational model meets all twelve of its features
in practice.

32. Among organizations that are widely known, the Department of
Defense likely comes closest to accomplishing the requisites of
the closed model, but the Pentagon’s exceptions to the model
are obvious, such as highly unstable conditions during wartime.
There are at least three theoretical threads that have thrived
within the closed model’s framework.
Bureaucratic Theory, Scientific Management, and
Administrative Management
3
The Backbone that Binds the Closed Model…..
There are at least three theoretical threads that have thrived
within the closed model’s framework.
Bureaucratic Theory,
Scientific Management,
Administrative Management
4
Bureaucratic Theory
The earliest school of the closed model is that of bureaucratic
theory, or the study of the impersonal organization, and the
execution, and enforcement of legal rules in organizations.
Its best-known representative is Max Weber, a remarkable
German sociologist who wrote around the turn of the twentieth
century. Although “bureaucracy” is common in all sectors,
Weber cast his theory of bureaucracy squarely in the public one.
The features of a bureaucracy include the following:
■ hierarchy;
■ promotion based on professional merit and skill;
■ the development of a career service;
■ reliance on and use of rules and regulations; and
■ impersonality of relationships among career-professionals in

33. the bureaucracy and with their clientele.
To Weber, an impersonal, rule-abiding, efficient, merit-based
career service provided the surest way of fulfilling the public
interest in the face of a politically fragmented Germany
and its arrogant, powerful, yet somewhat silly aristocracy.
Weber’s rigidly rational theory was warmly welcomed by the
first American public workers, who embraced it as a
justification of their values, all of which shared an abhorrence
with messy politics.
5
Scientific Management
Another rivulet of research in the closed model is scientific
management (more popularly known as “time-motion” studies),
which is the analysis of workflow processes as the means of
raising organizational productivity.
Workers as “Gear Wheels” Scientific management’s overriding
concern is to increase production, and it does this by making
human beings as efficient as,
and more like, machines.
Key representatives of the scientific management school include
Frederick Taylor (who gave this school its name with his 1911
volume, Principles of Scientific Management),
and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.
Similarly, the Gilbreths developed the concept of the “therblig,”
each one of which represented a category of eighteen basic
human motions—all physical activity fell into a therblig class of
one type or another.
Rendering workers more physically efficient could benefit the
workers (who, in the early twentieth century, were commonly
paid on a piecework basis), as well as their bosses, and even
clients.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therblig
Note; the impact of scientific management was stunning, and in
every sector. Herbert Hoover, as commerce secretary (1921–

34. 1928) and later as president, took Taylor’s writings to heart,
declaring a “war on waste” in both government and business.
Taylor was central in organizing America’s first graduate
school to offer a degree in business . His theories underlay the
Soviet Union’s first five-year economic plan. They were given
their “fullest application by Henry Ford, who,” following
Speedy Taylor’s example, “measured his workers’ movements
on the assembly line with a stopwatch.”
6
Administrative Management
Our final literature of the closed model is administrative
management, also called generic management, which is the
discovery and application of universal, scientific, administrative
principles that can improve any organization’s efficiency and
effectiveness.
Unfortunately for this school, there are no universal, scientific,
administrative principles, however every school, has made some
contributions of consequence.
The scholars of administrative management devoted their
energies to the discovery of managerial principles that worked
in any and all institutional settings
Writers in this stream usually offered up very specific
principles of administration: The public administration scholars,
Luther Gulick and Lynda11 Urwick listed seven “principles”;
James D. Mooney and Alan C. Reiley, in their aptly-titled and
influential work, The Principles of Organization, found four;
another, Henri Fayol, unearthed fourteen. Among the premier
scholars in this tradition,
Mary Parker Follett was one of the few who fudged when it
came to enumerating principles of administration, but then she
was unusually ahead of her time, perhaps because her
intellectual roots were deeply planted in public administration.
Henri Follett’s ideas (as channeled through W. Edwards
Deming, of total-quality-management fame) were implemented

35. by Japanese automakers, who applied them with enormous
success, at least up to a point.
Japan’s Toyota, after faithfully following Follett’s philosophy
for more than fifty years, abandoned it in favor of overtaking
General Motors as the globe’s biggest automaker (which it did)
by embracing “disastrous policies adopted after 2000, when top
management’s thinking changed sharply in a direction that,
while consistent with that of most other Western companies,
would never have been tolerated at Toyota in the past.”
With the emergence of administrative management, a hint
surfaced that presaged a revolution in organization theory, one
that ultimately would bluntly question a foundation of its two
theoretical predecessors, bureaucratic theory and scientific
management.
That hint was: underlings and toilers in organizations
conceivably might have minds of their own.
As Follett exemplifies, the administrative management writers
were among the first to express a dawning recognition that
subordinates were people (like managers) and could think
(almost like managers). This breakthrough provided a basis for
organization theory’s next paradigm, the open model.
7
The Open Model Of Organizations
As with the closed model, the open model goes by many names.
Collegial, competitive, free market, informal, natural, and
organic are some of them.
The origins of the open model actually precede those of the
closed model by more than a century and a half, and can be
traced to
Count Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon, and to his protégée
Auguste Comte, the “father of sociology.”
Both speculated on administration of the future:
technology would spawn new professions;

36. administrators would be appointed on the basis of skill rather
than heredity;
and organizations would be created spontaneously, evolve
“naturally,” and be a liberating force for humanity.2
8
Characteristics of the Open Model of Organizations
The principal features of the open model of organization are:
■ Non-routine tasks occur in unstable conditions.
■ Specialized knowledge contributes to common tasks (thus
differing from the closed model’s specialized task notion in that
the specialized knowledge possessed by any one member of the
organization may be applied profitably to a variety of tasks
undertaken by various other members of the organization).
■ Ends (or getting the job done), rather than means, are
emphasized.
■ Conflict within the organization is adjusted by interaction
with peers, rather than adjudicated from the top.
■ “Shedding of responsibility” is emphasized (in other words,
formal job descriptions are discarded in favor of all
organizational members contributing to all organizational
problems).
■ One’s sense of responsibility and loyalty is to the
organization as a whole.
■ The organization is perceived as a fluidic network structure
(that is, the organization “looks” like an amoeba).
■ Knowledge can be located anywhere in the organization (in
other words, everybody knows something relevant about the
organization, but no one, including the chief executive, knows
everything).
■ Interaction between people in the organization tends to be
horizontal (that is, peers interact with peers), as well as
vertical.
■ The style of interaction is directed toward accomplishment,

37. “advice” (rather than commands), and is characterized by a
“myth of peerage,” which envelops even the most obvious
superordinate/subordinate relationships.
■ Task achievement and excellence of performance in
accomplishing a task are emphasized, sometimes at the expense
of obedience to one’s superiors.
■ Prestige is “externalized” (i.e., personal status in the
organization is determined largely by one’s professional ability
and reputation, rather than by office and rank).
Note: The open model of organizations, which, like the closed
model, does not exist in actuality, although a major university
might come close (which is why the open model occasionally is
called the “collegial” model).
As with the closed model, three threads comprise the open
model of organizations.
9
The Backbone that Binds The Open Model…..
As with the closed model, three threads comprise the open
model of organizations.
Human Relations
Organizational Development
The Organization As A Unit Of The Environment
10
Human Relations
The first of our three threads, human relations, is the study of
people’s problems, opportunities, and interactions in
organizations.
It focuses on organizational variables, such as personal

38. motivations, never considered in the closed model.
11
The Hawthorne Experiments
In 1924, Elton Mayo and Fritz J. Roethlisberger began a series
of studies (later known as “the Hawthorne experiments,” for the
location of the plant) of working conditions and worker
behavior at a Western Electric factory.
Ultimately, the research involved six massive, and hugely
influential, studies conducted over eight years.
Their experiment was predicated on the hypothesis that workers
would respond like “gear wheels” to changes in working
conditions.
To test it, they altered the intensity of light available to a group
of selected workers, expecting that the dimmer the light the
lower their productivity. The lights were turned down and
production went up. Mayo and Roethlisberger were
disconcerted. They dimmed the lights to near darkness, and
production kept climbing.
Among the explanations of this phenomenon that later came
forth were: human workers probably are not entirely like
machines;
the Western Electric workers were responding to some
motivating variable other than the lighting, or despite the lack
of it; and that the likely variable in question was that they had
been told that they were being watched—a condition that
became known as the “Hawthorne effect.”
The Hawthorne experiments have grown increasingly
controversial over time.
Some re-examinations of the data conclude that factors other
than human relations drove greater productivity, such as the
observed workers’ fear of being laid off and that, unlike other
workers, they were given rest periods and group pay incentives;
others counter that the original findings remain valid.
Nevertheless, the experiments rooted the idea deep into

39. management theory that unquantifiable relationships (or “human
relations”) between workers and managers, and among workers
themselves,
are significant determinants of workers’ productivity.
12
A Hierarchy of Human Needs: From Job Satisfaction to Self-
Actualization
The Hawthorne experiments inspired much research on job
satisfaction—that is, what factors contribute to, or detract from,
employees’ acceptance of, and even happiness with, their
employment.
An early and important contribution to this research is the
“hierarchy of human needs” developed by A. H. Maslow.
Maslow perceived job-related human desires to be based, first,
on physiological needs (such as eating), which provided the
foundation for a person’s next greatest need, economic security,
then love or belongingness, followed by self-esteem, and
ultimately self-actualization.
Self-actualization refers to a person growing, maturing, and
achieving a deep inner sense of self-worth as he or she relates
to his or her job.
Maslow wrote that these “highly evolved” self-actualized
people assimilated “their work into the identity, into the self,
i.e., work actually becomes part of the self, part of the
individual’s definition of himself.”
13
14
Hygienic Factors and Motivator Factors

40. Frederick Herzberg extended Maslow’s hierarchy of human
needs to his “motivation-hygiene theory,” which holds that
there are two classes of phenomena that make people feel good
or bad about their jobs.
One class relates to the context of the job, and includes such
factors as working conditions, organizational policies, and
salary. Herzberg called these “extrinsic” dimensions hygienic
factors, so named because they are needed to avoid worker
dissatisfaction, but fail, in and of themselves, to provide
satisfaction and engagement. Hygienic factors correspond, more
or less, with the base of Maslow’s pyramid of human needs,
where physiological and security needs are found,
Herzberg’s second category relates to the content of the job, and
includes such factors as professional and personal challenge,
appreciation of a job well done by supervisors and peers, and a
sense of being responsible for important matters. Herzberg
called these “intrinsic” aspects motivator factors.
Motivators relate, by and large, with the upper reaches of
Maslow’s pyramid—belongingness and self-esteem, but not
necessarily with self-actualization. Belongingness and self-
esteem result in employees who are satisfied with their jobs,
whereas self-actualization refers to one’s job becoming part of
one’s definition of self, which is beyond mere job satisfaction;
self-actualization verges on obsession.
15
16
Hygienic or Motivator Factors: What Matters to Public and
Nonprofit Employees?
What matters more to public and nonprofit employees, hygienic
factors, such as pay and perks, or motivators, such as praise and

41. producing?
Hygienic factors do not count for much among these workers.
Consider, for example, salary, perhaps the most definitively
hygienic factor of all.
Large-scale studies have found that government workers are
“significantly less motivated by salary” than are private-sector
workers.
Without question, motivator factors dominate.
And they appear to be more important to government and
nonprofit workers than they are to other and larger working
populations.
For over three decades, roughly nine out of every ten federal
employees have stated that “the work I do is meaningful” or
“important” compared with about half of all Americans who
state, in a similar vein, that “a feeling of accomplishment” is
the “most important” single aspect of their jobs.
Federal managers are much more likely than their counterparts
in business to “come to work” because of the “nature of their
jobs.”
State government workers “are more motivated to perform their
work when they have clearly understood and challenging tasks
that they feel are important and achievable.”
17
Hygienic or Motivator Factors: What Matters to Organizations?
It may be comforting to know that motivators matter most to
employees, but do they, or hygienic factors, matter more in
advancing the interests of the organization?
Hygienic factors count, but not much.
There is simply no discernible relationship between generous
hygienic policies (e.g., lengthy vacations, etc.)—or stingy
ones—and more profitable companies. Hygienic factors “are
like tickets to the ballpark—they can get you into the game, but
they can’t help you win.”

42. Motivator factors are more complicated.
In and of themselves, they add more to employees’ job
satisfaction than do hygienic factors, and job satisfaction can
be, but not necessarily is, a positive component in
organizational productivity.
But job satisfaction is merely that; one can be satisfied with
one’s job, but contribute to one’s organization so minimally that
it suffices only to avoid dismissal.
18
Enter Employee Engagement
The multitude of acolytes spawned by Maslow and Herzberg
eventually began concentrating on what can help organizations
win.
Their answer is: employee engagement.
Employee engagement holds that workers have a rational
commitment (that is, employees’ logical understanding that
their employment benefits them financially and professionally—
basically, an extension of Herzberg’s hygienic factors) and an
emotional commitment (i.e., the visceral pride and enjoyment
that employees derive from their work and organization—
arguably an extension of Herzberg’s motivator factors) to their
organization that inspire them to exert their very best effort on
their organization’s behalf.
Employee engagement expands the employee’s psychic bonding
with his or her job (that is, Maslow’s self-actualization, should
it be realized) to the whole of the organization.
A variety of large-scale analyses show that “employee
engagement surpasses satisfaction as an indicator of [individual
and organizational] productivity.”
And an individual’s job satisfaction per se was about all that
Maslow and Herzberg were really concerned with, but it is
insufficient as a prod of productivity.
19

43. What Engages Workers?
Six conditions of employee engagement are the factors most
clearly associated with organizational productivity. They are:
when employees feel that they know what is expected of them at
work;
have what they need to do their jobs right;
have the opportunity “to do what I do best every day”;
receive recognition for work well done over the last seven days;
believe that someone at work cares about them as a person
and think that there is someone at work who encourages their
development
Companies that fulfill these conditions score markedly higher
on the four critical measures of corporate strength:
productivity, profit, employee retention, and customer
satisfaction.
20
Rude, Crude, and Lewd: What Disengages Workers?
“Toxic workers,” or employees who are thieves, fraudsters,
sexual harassers, or similar sociopaths can infect colleagues
with their toxicity and result
in massive employee disengagement from their jobs and
organizations.
Hence, neutralizing toxic workers “enhances performance to a
much greater extent than
replacing an average worker with a superstar worker.”
Two types of toxic workers are, unfortunately, common:
uncivil boors and unconstrained bullies.
21

44. Uncivil Actions
Organizational incivility is “the exchange of seemingly
inconsequential inconsiderate words and deeds that violate
conventional norms of workplace conduct.”
Incivility’s presence may veil deeper pathologies, such as
racism and sexism;
once started, rudeness spreads quickly, “like catching a cold”;
and it can morph into an “incivility spiral” of “increasingly
intense aggressive behaviors.”
What happens to the perpetrators of incivility? On the surface,
not much.
Only 1 percent to 6 percent of employees who experience
incivility report it.
Dig a bit deeper, however, and the uncivil suffer.
Three-fifths of perceived incivility is inflicted by supervisors
on their subordinates, and their subordinates sneakily subvert
them;
a fifth of those miffed workers stall in responding to their
supervisors’ requests, and a third spread unflattering rumors
about them.
Whether civil or uncivil, managers and executives in Fortune
1000 firms report that
they spend 13 percent of their work time (or seven weeks per
year) dealing with the turbulent wake of incivility.
Bullying is incivility on steroids, and refers to overbearing and
intimidating behavior.
The organizational costs of bullying are far higher than those of
incivility.
22
Organization Development
Another important subfield of the open model is organization
development (OD), which is a planned, organization-wide

45. attempt directed from the top that is
designed to increase organizational effectiveness and viability
through calculated interventions in the active workings of the
organization, using knowledge from the behavioral sciences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_development
23
OD: Mission and Methods
The mission of organization development is to:
improve the individual member’s ability to get along with other
members;
legitimize human emotions in the organization;
increase mutual understanding among members;
reduce tensions; enhance “team management” and intergroup
cooperation; develop more effective methods of conflict
resolution using non-authoritarian and interactive methods;
and evolve less structured and more “organic” organizations.
“The basic value underlying all organization-development
theory and practice is that of choice.
Through … the collection and feedback of relevant data to
relevant people, more choices become available and hence
better decisions are made.”
24
The Executive’s Dilemma
OD’s prime value seems to be less one of organizational
productivity
and more one of employee happiness.
In fact, some of the field’s adherents worry that the very idea of
using OD to boost organizational performance is
a sell-out of the field’s mission of improving individual lives in
the workplace.
The bottom line and “the mind-set of management” have

46. perverted organization development;
as a consequence, employees trapped in “the grubby realities of
work life soon figure out whose side [these] breezy, self-
assured, and excessively articulate” OD consultants are truly
on.
They are, contemptibly (in this perspective), on management’s
side.
25
The Organization as a Unit in Its Environment
Our third school of the open model can be traced at least as far
back as the 1930s, and this theoretical thread is undergoing a
significant revitalization
Adapting to the Environment Organization theorists often refer
to this literary stream as adaptive systems or contingency
theory, which holds that organizations are themselves, and
function in, dynamic networks in which forces act and react to
one another,
and are able to cohere and stabilize only when their competition
and collaboration achieve a rough balance.
Adapting Biologically One school, known as population ecology
or organizational ecology, holds that organizational adaptation
is a biological, evolutionary process;
organizations that cannot adapt die.
Adapting Rationally Organizations are not happy families, but
rather pastiches of passive and aggressive, astute and dumb, and
ethical and unethical people, groups, and divisions,
each with its own goals and methods.
Adapting Politically The political approach to organizational
adaptation is realistic in that,
first, it recognizes that organizations are highly diverse, with
multiple divisions of labor and vastly different goals held by
their members, and,
second, with few exceptions (e.g., prisons), their members are

47. free to leave.
26
The Closed And Open Models: The Essential Differences
We have reviewed two, eminently disparate, models of
organizations, but they do share a pair of basic assumptions:
Both models assume that organizations are not suicidal, and that
they will try not only to survive, but to thrive.
Beyond these commonalities, however, the models split over
five assumptions about how the world works. These are
Assumptions about the Organization’s Environment
Assumptions about the Human Condition
Assumptions about the Role and Legitimacy of Organizational
Power
Assumptions about Manipulating Members of Organizations
Assumptions about the Moral Significance of Organizations in
Society
27
1. Assumptions about the Organization’s Environment
One such difference is the models’ assumptions about their
respective external environments. Each works in the
environment posited for it, but not in the other.
A closed-model organization, with its tall, many-layered
hierarchy, inflexible bureaucracy, and rigid routines, is superbly
suited for its posited environment—
one that is stable and devoid of surprises.
Should its environment be shattered, however, and a chaotic
environment, replete with swirling and confusing forces,

48. smashes in, then our closed organization would perish from its
own rigidities.
By contrast, the open-model organization— with its flat
hierarchy, flexible responses, and minimal, if any, routines—is
supremely suited for its posited environment—
one that is tumultuous and replete with surprises.
The open organization’s inherent ability to nimbly respond to
fast-paced, one-of-a-kind changes in its turbulent environment
assures its survival.
Should it find itself, however, in a new environment that is
characterized by stability, slowness, repetition, predictability,
and boredom, then our open organization
would die from its inability to tighten up, bureaucratize, and
routinize in ways that efficiently correspond to its new
environmental realities.
28
2. Assumptions about the Human Condition
The second difference between the closed and open models
parallels the first, in that their respective models of human
beings differ but are appropriate for each.
Theory X and Theory Y Douglas McGregor famously named
these models “Theory X” and “Theory Y.”
Theory X assumes that motivation to work is an individual
matter, and that most people do not like work, prefer close
supervision, cannot contribute creatively to the solution of
organizational problems, and are motivated by the threat of
punishment.
It is apparent that organizations exemplifying the closed model
not only would fit, but possibly might be appealing, to Theory
X people.
Theory Y, by contrast, assumes that motivation to work is a
group matter, and, given the right conditions, most people can
enjoy work as much as play, exercise self-control and prefer
doing jobs in their own way, solve organizational problems

49. creatively, and often are motivated by social and ego rewards.
It is apparent that organizations predicated on the open model
likely would attract Theory Y people.
29
The Riddle of Rational Interest
A related facet of human nature posited by the two models is
the problem of rational interest (choice), or how people define
their self-interest and the rationale that they use to fulfill it.
In the closed model, rational interest means
that everyone in the organization has the same goal (that is, the
organization’s official mission) and agrees on how to achieve
that goal in an optimal fashion.
In the open model, however, rational interest means
that each person in the organization has his or her own unique
goals (e.g., getting ahead, enjoying work), and has his or her
own personal way to achieve those goals.
However, each person’s real goals are not only disparate, but
often in conflict with the goals of other members
and possibly with the mission of their own organization.
Note: The way in which each person chooses to fulfill his or her
goals is unique to that person
Happily, in most agencies, public administrators’ “self-interests
do not necessarily run counter to the organization’s overall
interests,
in that they reflect a desire to make a useful contribution to the
performance of their organization….
The assumption of an inherent conflict between self- and
collective interests is not always valid, particularly in a public
sector context.”
30

50. 3. Assumptions about the Role and Legitimacy of
Organizational Power
Power, in an organizational context, simply means
getting people to do what you want them to do.
The models divide not only on how to exercise organizational
power, but also on
whether it should be exercised at all.
Power in the Closed Model The closed model has no qualms
about employing power.
Its theorists believe in orders and obedience, rules and
regulations, punctuality and punctiliousness.
Power in the Open Model These folks view coercion as
reprehensible, and, indeed, the open model occasionally appears
to argue against the presence of organizational power
altogether.
Relying on it is condemned as dehumanizing and not at all nice.
31
Power in the Closed Model
The closed model has no qualms about employing power.
Its theorists believe in orders and obedience, rules and
regulations, punctuality and punctiliousness.
The callous use of authoritarian coercion is seen as entirely
legitimate.
32
Power in the Open Model
In complete contrast to the closed model, the open model views
coercion as reprehensible, and, indeed, the open model
occasionally appears to
argue against the presence of organizational power altogether.

51. Relying on it is condemned as dehumanizing, “brutalizing,” and
not at all nice.
However the question remains: Is the individual autonomous or
is the organization dominant?
Regrettably, the open modelist’ distaste for power leads to a
contradiction in their theory of organizational behavior.
On the one hand, they argue that the exercise of authoritarian
power makes people miserable, and misery undermines the
attainment of organizational goals;
ergo, terminate the use of power and unhappy-unproductive
workers will blossom into “happy-productive workers” who will
fulfill those goals. Maybe?
33
What is Collective Action?
Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of
people whose goal is to enhance their status and achieve a
common objective.
A collective action problem is a situation in which all
individuals would be better off cooperating but fail to do so
because of conflicting interests between individuals that
discourage joint action.
Even though all organizational members would benefit from
attaining the collective good (that is, by fulfilling their
organization’s mission), it is nonetheless irrational for
any one member to voluntarily sacrifice to achieve that
collective good.
Why, for example, would an employee voluntarily work without
compensation? Better to let other employees work for free so
that the non-volunteer can freeload.
And, unless the organization is composed of “altruistic” or
“irrational” employees, no one else in the organization will
volunteer, either.
The open modelist’ contradictory and hopeless task suggests

52. that large organizations, such as governments, face severe
challenges in
motivating their employees to work for the benefit of the whole
organization—that is, for the common collective good.
34
The Inescapability of Organizational Power
If organizations depended on each member’s unique rational
interest to attain their common goals, as advocated in the open
model, then organizations would be pushed toward actions that
are collectively ruinous. Hence, coercion is mandatory in any
organization whose members are rational and self-interested if
the common good—the organization’s stated purpose—is to be
realized.
Power is fundamental to the very idea of organization. Most
open-model theorists seem to accept, if poutingly, the
immutable reality of organizational power. But some seem not
to.
35
4. Assumptions about Manipulating Members of Organizations
Manipulation is the techniques employed to exercise
organizational power.
In closed-model organizations, manipulation is obvious,
coercive, and legitimate. The human and organizational
dysfunctions of authoritarian manipulation are clear:
fear, rigidity, secrecy, narrowness, alienation, falsification, and
stultification number among them.
people in closed-model organizations “know where they stand,
"and it’s for people who like things straightforward and clear-
cut.
Manipulation in the open model is discreet, disguised, and
complicated.

53. It must be noted that whatever path that is chosen it must be
“appropriately” tailored in tone to each of their recipients if
one wishes to smooth the way for attaining organizational goals.
36
5. Assumptions about the Moral Significance of Organizations
in Society
The final distinction between the closed and open models can be
understood best by comparing Max Weber views and the moral
views with the larger society.
A “closed modelist” Max Weber, believed that bureaucracy,
replete with its own internal injustices, dehumanizing rules, and
monocratic arbitrariness, was vital, in its very rigidity and
rationalism, in mitigating the unorganized societal lunacy that
surrounded it.
If Weber’s notion of the bureaucracy’s stand-alone station in
society could be illustrated, it would look something like this:
37
The Moral View of the Open Model
In marked contrast, the open-model theorists hold that every
citizen, bureaucrat and non-bureaucrat alike, is encased in some
sort of bureaucratic organization.
Society is a series of overlapping and interacting organizations,
and there is no unorganized, irrational society “out there,”
roiling beyond organizational boundaries.
The open model’s concept that society is bureaucracy looks like

54. this.
38
Reconciling the Open and the Closed Systems
Reconciling the open and closed models begins with the open
model’s world view—that is, organizations are spontaneous
collectivities of people with their own goals and drives, who are
operating uncertainly in an unstable environment.
This is not a bad set of assumptions about any organization that
is just getting started.
But no organization can last long in a state of near nature.
Nature is unpredictable and uncertain, and all organizations are
extraordinarily averse to uncertainty.
So organizations are possessed by an overpowering need to
reduce uncertainty—
that is, to routinize and rationalize the organization’s internal
workings and its relations with its environment whenever and
wherever possible.
Note: The organizational need to reduce uncertainty reflects the
deeply human need to do the same:
psychologists tell us that the more certain we are, the happier
we are.
39
Responses to Internal Sources of Uncertainty
If the sources of organizational uncertainty are internal, then
the organization will strive to reduce uncertainty by
centralizing.
Centralizing techniques include:
indoctrinating all members of the organization “to respond only

55. to commands from the central leadership and from no other
source”;
controlling all communication involving “vexing sub-
organizations” in an effort to nip “nonconforming thought” and
“deviant behavior”;
intensifying surveillance of troublesome subunits; “detaching
key operations,” such as the control of funds, from deviating
departments, “thus reducing their self-containment and
increasing their vulnerability to central direction”;
and, finally, expelling offending units, a radical act that
amounts to “a contraction of boundaries constituting a
withdrawal from internal sources of uncertainty.”
40
Responses to External Sources of Uncertainty
If, however, the sources of organizational uncertainty are
external—that is, they are in the organization’s task
environment—then the organization will seek to
reduce that uncertainty by absorbing the outside sources of
uncertainty into the organization itself.
It does this by expanding its boundaries—by growing.
Co-optation, described earlier, is one form that this
incorporation of external uncertainties might take;
the effort by an organization to control some facet of the natural
environment (for example, to engage in flood control) is another
form;
to merge or ally with competitive organizations is yet another.
Ironically, decentralization often is required if an organization
is to expand, and decentralization can result in
new, internal sources of uncertainty.
If the expansion of an organization’s boundaries is blocked,
then the organization will seek to reduce its exchanges with its
environment—“withdrawal from the source of uncertainty, as it
were.”
A firm uncertain about its future supplies might decide to

56. stockpile or produce its own manufacturing components.
41
The Public Organization and Environmental Uncertainty
In the public sector, those administrators who perceive high
levels of political, social, and economic uncertainty in their
organizations’ environments also harbor
concerns about their organizations’ “inertia”;
consult with citizens a lot;
and maintain a responsive, curious, and exploratory “strategic
stance” relative to their external environments.
When these public administrators worry about environmental
uncertainty,
the public can benefit.
Public agencies “that perceive high levels of uncertainty in their
external political environment perform better than those that
perceive that environment to be certain,” and this linkage is
“positive and statistically significant….
even when controlling for past performance, service
expenditure, and external constraints.”
42
Folks you will love…..Maybe
Max Weber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber_bibliography
Frederick Taylor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Moller_Gilbreth
Henri Fayol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fayol
Mary Parker Follett
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Parker_Follett
W. Edwards Deming

57. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
Hawthorne effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
A. H. Maslow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
43
44
Are Public And Nonprofit Organizations Different?