Ambiguity in the structure of decision-makers relationships is considered for the strategic opportunities it offers calculating actors. Ambiguity is discussed in the context of reciprocity, authority, and jurisdictional facets of relationships. The value of ambiguity as a common theme linking rational actor and system level concepts is also…

Many argue that work should meet individual needs for fulfillment (humanism) while meeting needs for personal income and organizational productivity (materialism). The authors side with those arguing that the two modes are incompatible and that the dominant paradigm of materialism must be abandoned. (Author/IRT)

Responds to another article in the same issue of this journal. (IRT)

Presents an overview of an approach to organizational evolution that takes human organizations as the unit of analysis and offers an explanation of much human experience in terms of a dynamics inherent in organizational life. (Author)

Analyzes the organizational imperative: its a priori propositions, its rules for behavior, and its administrative norms. Particular attention is given to its impact on social values, for the organizational imperative has transformed them into supportive administrative norms. (Author)

By tracing the inter-relationships between the concepts "modern industrialism,""bureaucracy," and "ideology," a general ideology of modern administration emerges that ascribes rationality to organizations, not to men. A review of American and Soviet literature reveals a pattern of parallel responses to this ideology.…

Four conceptual dimensions (organizational domain, integration, risk, and need) are explored to determine their likely independent and interactive influences on the adoptability of a computer application in local government. (Author/IRT)

Focuses on action research as a strategy for the helping institution, as an organizationwide intervention in organization change efforts, and as a means of leadership development. (Author/IRT)

Two types of organizational structure--centralized and pluralistic--found in 48 states' public assistance organizations can be partly accounted for by the administrative ideology that was dominant at the organization's formative stage. The effects of the structure on some internal components of the organization are long-lasting. (Author/IRT)

Attitudes of middle-level managers in the Wisconsin State Employment Service are examined as an influence on behavior consistent or contrary to organizational goals and objectives. Shortly after a period of significant change in mission, managers' attitudes toward the change correlated with the performance of their offices in implementing the…

Assuming extreme scarcity, arguments are developed that public organizations could be expected to constrain their domain definition, allow domain selection to dictate technology, seek clientele suited to existing technologies, and, in general, take actions that will ensure that existing technologies are employed at capacity. (Author/IRT)

Four propositions were developed as a result of an examination of why some active groups are better represented in local bureaucracies than are others. The areas the propositions are concerned with are organizational structure, behavior of the group, socioeconomic and racial composition of the group, and the underrepresentation of Blacks in local…

Examines the general problem of contextual analysis as applied to organizations; the way organizations are or may be classified; how governments, considered as organizations, relate to other kinds of organizations within their domain; and how the different way governments are organized affects nongovernmental organizations under their rule.…

Attempts to study the interbureaucratic political process of budget formulation; to deal with the allocation of money by the interaction of specific federal agencies, departments, and bureaus; to explain how bureaucracies behave toward one another; and to estimate the power of those involved in this one arena of bureaucratic politics. (Author/IRT)