Structural Approach to Large Organizations Structure is the basic building block of organizations – it is the formal arrangement among the people engaged in the organization’s mission. Distinction made between positions and the persons who occupy them. Assumption of behavioral patterns in a role regardless of who has the role.

Structural Approach Central problem of power to political society Hierarchy: top-down delegation of authority from higher officials to lower ones – Humanist; Pluralist; Government-by-Proxy; Formal Authority: government has legitimate power to make decisions within constitutionally defined limits, with the expectation of widespread compliance

Structural Approach: Administrative Implications Principals and agents – Principals: elected officials who make policy and delegate responsibility to public administrators – Agents: administrators charged with carrying out the law – Agencies: organizations established to do the work

Structural Approach: Administrative Implications (continued) Narrow, defined specialization Internal specialized structure Rules of the game for the agencies’ units and position holders Staff of experts Outside definition of roles and responsibilities – e.g., Legislature has authority to alter the agency

Two Models of the Structural Approach Classical model: Gulick (1930s) – Clearly bounded jurisdictions of authority and responsibility – Subdivision of positions immediately under the top position – Prime value of Efficiency – Objective principles of organization Bureaucratic model: Weber (1946) – Legitimacy of the system of authority

The Classical Theory’s Six Specific Doctrines 1.Bases of organization: purpose, process, clientele, place 2.Mutually exclusive alternatives 3.Focus on purpose at the top 4.Span of control 5.Single head for agencies 6.Separate line and staff

Bureaucratic Model Traditional authority: depends on the loyalty of individuals to someone who has become chief Charismatic authority: rests on personal devotion to an individual Rational-legal authority: legally established impersonal order – Weber: most efficient

Systems Theory Major alternative to hierarchical approach Generalizes about all organizations, public and private, large and small Uses analogies from the physical and biological fields

Systems Theory (continued) Closed-system theorists: organization’s own operation is substantially unaffected by its environment Open-system theorists: organization interacts with its environment Most systems approaches are open

Open-System Approach Open system: an organization is a system that receives inputs of resources, which it throughputs and transforms to yield outputs (products or services) Inputs: maintain the organization, overhead costs Feedback loop: feedback can help flag problems and identify things that work

Systems Theory Features: Boundaries and Purpose System boundaries: defined by agency jurisdiction – Inputs to the system and the system’s outputs – Survival needs are adaptation to external environment and suppression of internal threats System purpose: agency mission – Translates inputs into outputs

Challenges to Structural Approach and Systems Theory Humanist approach: wants to humanize organizations, condemns impersonality of bureaucratic hierarchy Pluralist approach: interest-group pressures, wants less orderly model of an organization’s interactions

Challenges to Structural Approach and Systems Theory (continued) Third-party approach: recognizes contracting out, delegation of authority to third parties Formal approach: structural perspective with emphasis on principal-agent theory, economic approach

Humanist Approach Emphasis on the individual workers in the organization Scientific management movement: Frederick Taylor (1900s) studied how long it took workers to accomplish specified tasks – Perceived as dehumanizing

Humanist Approach (continued) Human relations movement: 1950s, happy workers are more productive – Belief that large organizations would work better if top officials changed their behavior Sensitivity training: team building activities for corporate executives

Pluralist Approach Emphasizes the responsiveness of a government organization to society’s politically active interest groups Administrative organizations are the product of this conflict and accommodation of interests

Organizational Culture Organizational culture: stresses variation among agencies; generalizations about structure of authority are problematic

Third-Party Approach The more government relies on third-party tools, the less it fits structural models Organizational structure: an administration’s internal framework

Third-Party Approach (continued) Organizational structure is being mixed with public-private partnerships Network analysis: organizations help one another because they discover that cooperation advances their own goals as well

Formal Approach Bureaucracies are networks of contracts built around systems of hierarchies and authority Individuals seek self-interest Transaction costs: the cost to the supervisor of supervising the subordinate

Formal Approach (continued) Employees work because they receive pay and fulfillment Employers pay workers to get the job done Market determines pay scale

One Example of the Formal Approach Principal-agent theory: higher level officials (principals) initiate the contracts and then hire subordinates (agents) to implement them Workers are responsible to top-level officials (principals) through contracts in exchange for specific rewards Results will be only as good as the contracts

Conclusion Each approach embodies a significant truth about government organizations Error of these approaches lies in overgeneralization Important to study reality Need to formulate middle-range theories: those that explain a limited range of phenomena