The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

Men and Women of the Corporation

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

New Patterns of Management.

Organizational development: Theory, practice, and research.

This study employed meta-analytic procedures to evaluate the potential validity of a model of planned organizational change. Hypotheses derived from this model focus on the relationships among plan...

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Dynamics of Planned Organizational Change: Assessing Empirical Support For A Theoretical Model

There is a growing recognition of the need for fundamental changes in the way public organizations are structured and managed (Barzelay, 1992; Johnston, 1993; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). With the environment becoming more turbulent, organizational boundaries changing or even collapsing, and the number of constituents in the political arena increasing, many public organizations will require implementation of a broad range of proactive changes designed to improve organizational functioning. In particular, it is frequently argued that organizations need to reduce their managerial structure, allow greater discretion and responsibility among their front-line employees, and operate more flexibly and innovatively if they are to perform sufficiently well to ensure their survival (Cleveland, 1985; Drucker, 1988; Peters, 1988). The field of planned organizational change, based largely on the knowledge and techniques derived from the organizational development (OD) movement, provides a potentially useful set of approaches for implementing requisite changes along these lines. Although the potential benefits of planned organizational change for public organizations seem apparent, previous literature pertinent to this issue is more equivocal. On the one hand, literature discussing differences between public and private organizations suggests that organizational development may not be as viable in the public sector. In contrast, prior empirical investigations of OD outcomes in the two sectors provide some evidence that OD can be as effective in public organizations. Therefore, further assessment of its utility to public organizations would be a timely and useful venture. In this article, we explore this issue through a meta-analysis of prior evaluations of organizational change projects. Specifically, we compare the outcomes of planned change in the public sector to those generated in private sector organizations. Because expectations regarding differences that might be found between the two sectors are not straightforward, we first discuss in greater depth the potential efficacy of OD in public organizations. Then we turn to a more complete description of the focus and methods of our own analysis. The Potential Efficacy of Organizational Development in Public Organizations Ambiguity regarding the efficacy of planned organizational change in public organizations is based in part on the question of whether or not they differ from private organizations in ways that would limit the effectiveness of organizational development efforts. The traditional perspective has been that key differences between the two sectors have important implications for the likelihood of successfully implementing a program of planned change. Features of public organizations noted most often include the absence of market incentives; the existence of multiple, conflicting goals; and a political context with a broader range of constituent groups, higher levels of accountability, and more rules, regulations, and constraints (Meyer, 1982; Perry and Rainey, 1988). These features may cause problems for the implementation of OD that reflect not just an inappropriate application of theory but the possibility that the theory itself does not fit the reality of public administration (Forbes, 1978). Because private sector organizations are driven primarily by market or consumer preferences, organizational effectiveness is more readily measured in terms of efficiency and profitability. As a result, change activity can be implemented and assessed using these narrow criteria as the primary basis for evaluating their success, possibly making it easier for these change efforts to be successful. In contrast, there are different and more varied criteria by which to assess organizational effectiveness in the public sector. Hence, public organizations may find it more difficult to use planned change interventions effectively, because the primary goal of these efforts will not be as straightforward or as consensually supported. …

Outcomes of Planned Organizational Change in the Public Sector: A Meta-Analytic Comparison to the Private Sector

To integrate existing literature on spirituality in different disciplines and move it forward, the authors propose a new theoretical conceptualization of spirituality, based on which they develop a new scale of spirituality. Using structural equation modeling, the authors conduct confirmatory factor analysis on survey data collected from 2,230 individuals to test and cross-validate the spirituality scale. The authors find the construct of spirituality is best captured by three correlated, yet distinct, factors: interconnection with a higher power, interconnection with human beings, and interconnection with nature and all living things. Results show that the spirituality scale demonstrates content validity, face validity, discriminant validity, convergent validity, and structural reliability. In addition, the authors theoretically argue and empirically validate that the notion of spirituality incorporates and transcends religiousness.

Spirituality in the Workplace: Theory and Measurement:

Powerful environmental forces are transforming the way organizations operate. In particular, forces such as innovations in information technology, demographic changes, and globalization (Drucker, 1988; Naisbitt, 1982; Peters, 1990; Toffler, 1990) require organizations to reduce their managerial structure, allow greater discretion and responsibility among their front-line employees, and operate more innovatively if they are to survive (Cleveland, 1985; Drucker, 1988; Peters, 1988). The call for such organizational changes is being made for the private as well as the public sector (Barzelay, 1992; DiIulio, Garvey, & Kettl, 1993; National Academy of Public Administration, 1993; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). As a result, the move is away from more rigid and control-oriented bureaucracies to decentralized and mission-driven organizations that are more responsive to their local constituents and environments. In these organizations, effective collective action depends to a large extent on the active involvement of self-motivated participants. The commitment organizational participants-to each other and to the organization itself - becomes a critical and, at times, even necessary, mechanism for directing their behavior toward collective goal accomplishment. In recent years, the role of commitment in collective action(1) has received increasing attention from the social sciences. In particular, this attention is apparent in two distinct literatures, namely, literature based in the field of organizational behavior (OB) and the portion of the rational choice literature identified as the new institutionalism.(2) While each of the two perspectives analyzes commitment through different theoretical lenses, both develop similar arguments about how informal social mechanisms affect the pattern of interaction among participants and their commitment to collective action. The common interest in commitment and informal social mechanisms provides a reference point for linking insights from both of these perspectives. The similarities between the two perspectives are evident when one examines the role of commitment in shaping the effectiveness of public schools, in particular those that have adopted school-based management (SBM). Consistent with the organizational trends noted above, SBM entails a shift in decision-making authority away from a school district's central administration to constituents at the school level (Swanson, 1989). It is a popular reform mechanism that has received considerable public attention over the last decade, as school districts across the country have taken steps to decentralize decision making to their individual schools. The objective of SBM is to improve school functioning by allowing school-level participants - staff, teachers, and parents - to have greater influence on decisions in selected domains. These participants' commitment to collective objectives becomes a critical factor affecting the outcome of SBM. Hence, school-based management provides a good case for examining the role of commitment in collective action. We begin this article by first discussing the concept of commitment as addressed from each of the two prospective, organizational behavior and rational choice. Next, we compare the perspectives in terms of their differences in foci and assumptions regarding the role of commitment in collective action. Then we examine several general strategies - social processes, leadership, and structural design - for fostering commitment in organizational settings. Finally, we discuss these strategies as they are used in school-based management, drawing on ideas from the two perspectives to analyze the role of commitment in this situation. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our analysis for future research on organizations and collective action. The Concept of Commitment The field of organizational behavior examines behavior in and of organizational systems. …

Peter J. Robertson

Papers

Organizational development: Theory, practice, and research.

Dynamics of Planned Organizational Change: Assessing Empirical Support For A Theoretical Model

Outcomes of Planned Organizational Change in the Public Sector: A Meta-Analytic Comparison to the Private Sector

Spirituality in the Workplace: Theory and Measurement:

The Role of Commitment in Collective Action: Comparing the Organizational Behavior and Rational Choice Perspectives