This article argues that a multiorganizational unit of analysis, an implementation structure, should be used when describing and evaluating the implementation and administration of programmes.Programmes are implemented by clusters of parts of public and private organizations. An implementation structure is the administrative entity which programme implementors use for accomplishing objectives within programmes. An organizationally rooted analy sis is therefore inadequate to rationalize the activities surrounding programme imple mentation.This article defines implementation structures and argues the advantage of using a multiorganizational analytic perspective over the perspective of single organizations.

Implementation Structures: A New Unit of Administrative Analysis

Family businesses are fertile fields for conflict. The influence of the founding families on the basic tenets and culture of the company may be unparalleled in business. When attempts are made to modify the family business as it progresses to another stage of development, conflict may arise. Due to the verlay of the company culture and individual family units, the means to resolve conflict becomes a very intricate process. This article examines a means to predict conflict relative to the phases of development of a family business. In addition, multiple levels of conflict are examined as well as the appropriate resolution process for the differing levels of conflict.

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Family Business and Multiple Levels of Conflict

A butterfly catastrophe model of motivation in organization: Academic performance.

Having read Dekker's ‘Field Guide to Understanding Human Error’ a few years ago, I was interested to learn what more he had to say about safety.Quite a lot, it seems.‘Safety Differently’ is written...

Safety differently: human factors for a new era

The Gameful World is a juggernaut. In terms of both the publication's size and content, the jacket claims that the collection of essays concern ‘virtually everything important that has been said ab...

The Gameful World: approaches, issues, applications.

It is proposed that further qualitative progress in the computer simulation modeling of complex societal systems is dependent on incorporation of field-theoretic constructs embodying truly behavioral and social forces. A number of separate developments are reviewed in the context of the revitalization of field theory in social science. These are: field theory in sociotechnical systems theory, hierarchy theory, critical phenomena, and catastrophe theory. It is argued that the sociotechnical macrosystem can best be viewed as a field of interacting forces which manifests certain unique phenomena. The phenomena emphasized are: slow, continuous change followed by sudden, discontinuous or catastrophic jumps; incipient changes in the field; hierarchical restructuring; emergence of new properties at successive hierarchical levels; and turbulence of the environmental field. Examples of these phenomena, taken from the dynamics and evolution of societies, are given.



Two important contemporary advances in the computer simulation modeling of societies, the Systems Dynamics National Model of the United States socioeconomic system and Mankind at the Turning Point, are discussed with regard both to reflecting field-theoretic interpretations of the dynamics of the macrosystem and to the nontrivial incorporation of behavioral and social factors. Both modeling approaches are found wanting. It is argued that these models therefore lack fidelity, the faithful capturing of real world phenomena.

Kenyan B. De Greene

Papers

Force fields and emergent phenomena in sociotechnical macrosystems: Theories and models