Previous qualitative studies show that when the formal organization of a school and patterns of informal interaction are aligned, faculty and leaders in a school are better able to coordinate instructional change. This article combines social network analysis with interview data to analyze how well the formal and informal aspects of a school's…

Proposes a temporal critical contingencies (i.e., of environment and strategy) model of power to describe the bases of power in organizations. (Author/WD)

Operationalizes garbage-can theory into a stochastic process model for the case of a traditional Weberian bureaucracy. Illustrates how ambiguity may impinge on decision making within a structural setting familiar to classical organization theorists and derives the managerial implications of garbage-can theory. (Author/IRT)

Although professionalism has been an important concept to American journalists for over a century, no consensus exists regarding what concepts like profession, professionalism, and professionalization mean. Three basic traditions have dominated the sociological literature on professionalism: (1) the phenomenological approach, which advocates…

Suggests an empirical model to test the assumption that conflict and consensus theories of organizational management can be combined, with the central concept being power. Three studies supporting the model suggest that it has considerable heuristic and empirical potential. (JW)

Two structures of authority coexist in colleges and universities: one that manages the supporting functional services and one that deals with the production areas of scholarship, teaching, and learning. This literature review defines organizational structure, discusses traditional organization models such as bureaucratic models, and outlines the…

A review of the published and unpublished literature on alternative perspectives for viewing organizations provides the basis for this monograph, which includes the contributions of five authors. The papers are intended to serve as a primer for educators interested in newer organizational perspectives and to stimulate them to learn more about, and…

This working paper focuses on the educational planner as a bureaucratic actor. To explain planner influence or lack of influence in the policymaking process, practitioners need to explore the micropolitics of organizations and understand individual, organizational, and situational forces demanding their engagement. Planners need an engaged…

Focusing on theoretical and empirical relations among power variables, faculty job involvement, and college organizational effectiveness, a study found that power behaviors variously affect one's sense of job involvement and overall effectiveness of one's college. Implications for academic administrators' behavior are discussed. (Author/MSE)

This research examines the changes that electronic information technologies have caused on power within organizations, particularly related to library automation, academic libraries, and their positions on college campuses. Based on the strategic contingencies theory of intraorganizational power, a model of organizational power is developed and…

Discussion of the future of educational technology focuses on an organizational analysis of the scenarios presented in the articles in this issue. Categories of organizational dynamics include the environment; goals, including values and objectives; structures, including authority and finance; methods, or technologies; and personnel issues,…

Presents theoretical and practical rationales for using a professional model rather than a bureaucratic one in analyzing the social interactions in public schools, and pinpoints some of the central concepts of the professional model as they relate to school organization. (Author)

Historical perspective on the development of collaborative and adversarial models of participatory governance in community college organization. The collaborative model depends on shared values among its participants, while the adversary model operates by power struggle between groups. The decision on which model to adopt requires self-study…

A study tested a model of intraorganizational power in the libraries of 256 liberal arts colleges, focusing on power variables, environmental variables, technology level, and bases of power variables. Results indicate that technology has a direct, yet slight, influence on the bases of power. However, the overall model was not statistically…

Mechanic's (1962) conceptual model of power of lower participants was empirically tested, with a focus on the relationship between chairpersons and departmental secretaries of academic units. Power was defined as the ability of a person to have access to and control over information and individuals. A questionnaire was developed that covered the…