Data indicate that controllers do not have the same authority in all their functions nor in the various decisions within those functions. (Author)

Defines the concept of the synergistic model of organizational structure. The primary components of the model are cooperative action and job integration, which have as a direct result the increased energy in staff members using the model. (MD)

THIS STUDY ATTEMPTS TO RELATE THE VARIABLES OF POWER AND INFLUENCE TO OPERATIONAL DECISIONMAKING IN SELECTED HIGH SCHOOLS. TWO HIGH SCHOOLS IN A WEST COAST CITY ARE EXAMINED (1) TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE DEGREE OF DECISIONMAKING INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANTS AND GROUPS, (2) TO INVESTIGATE THE ROLE OF PERSONS WITHOUT FORMAL (OFFICIAL)…

Conceptions of politics and myths of campus politics are explored, the organizational context for the politics of curriculum development are examined, the dynamics of "pork barrel" curriculum development (i.e., driven by self-interest) are outlined, and criticisms of this process are considered. (MSE)

Evaluation occurs within existing programs and power arrangements of complex organizations. It may develop as a licensed concession within a program or as an expression of a concession made to the ideal of rational decision making. The formation of professional career paths in evaluation may lead to career immobility. (Author/MH)

Concerns ways in which consultants can learn about their clients' politics and address this content explicitly. Describes two modeling techniques that consultants might use in consultant-client interactions to facilitate the explicit examination and analysis of internal politics. Illustrates these techniques with case examples. (Author/ABB)

Surveyed 90 administrative and nonadministrative social workers employed in nursing homes who identified their level of influence in 5 spheres of organizational decision making. There were few differences between the two groups. However, among directors, number of full-time equivalent social workers, type of institution ownership, and length of…

This paper presents a model of how organizations adapt to the uncertainty in their environment by making changes in the way they structure themselves for decisionmaking. The research reported here indicates that it is not just a single change in organizational structure, but rather a shifting between a more rigid and more flexible decision…

Organizational systematics were applied to a classification scheme for postsecondary institutions using a combined phyletic-phenetic approach. Nine characteristics of organizational structure were operationalized for the college setting: institutional autonomy, centralized decision making, functional specialization, effective participation,…

Used factors identified in the literature as predictors of centralization/decentralization as potential discriminating variables among several decision making configurations in university affiliated professional schools. The model developed from multiple discriminant analysis had reasonable success in classifying correctly only the decentralized…

Site-based management (SBM) could change schools by altering the scope of authority, involvement, and influence to lessen dominance relationships in education and inequities regarding struggling students. These dominance relationships exist between administrators and staff and between staff and students. SBM seems to signal a paradigm shift from a…

The rhetoric and results of efforts to empower and professionalize teachers are examined to gain insight into ways in which the language of educational reform functions in both maintaining and changing power relations. This critical analysis clarifies how the ways people communicate both influence and are influenced by the structures and forces of…

Employee ownership affects organizational integration, organizational involvement and organizational commitment. Through a framework which predicts the effects of employee ownership on job attitudes and organizational performance (Long, 1978), the effects of conversion to employee ownership at three companies with varying degrees of employee…

A study of a small employee-owned furniture company indicated that the three occupational groups agreed that management should have more influence in decisions affecting the future of the organization. On the other hand, issues which would directly affect employee welfare are seen as areas where control should be fairly evenly divided, with…

In light of the complexity of the administrative conditions in higher education institutions, academic planners must prepare for the 1980s by increasing their understanding of the institution as a political system and learning to plan under conditions of economic adversity and intense political action. (MSE)