Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 1957"

Technology, Organization, and Administration

Abstract: Elaboration of technology leads to increasing complexity of the enterprise using it, and the type of technology available for particular purposes sets limits to the types of structures appropriate for organizations. Comparing the mining enterprise, the manufacturer, the hospital, and the university, the authors advance a number of propositions about relationships between technology and administrative processes. James D. Thompson is director of the A dministrative Science Center, University of Pittsburgh. Frederick L. Bates is associate professor of sociology in Louisiana State University.

The administration of manufacturer-dealer systems

Abstract: Retail dealers whose major business is in the products of a single manufacturer form an organizational system with that manufacturer. For this system to operate effectively as an integrated whole and to compete with similar manufacturer-dealer systems, certain administrative functions must be performed for the system, over and above the administration of the formally separate manufacturer and dealer organizations. This paper examines the interdependent roles of manufacturer and dealer and the administrative attempts to control quasiindependent units.' The author is a member of the faculty of the Department of Business Administration at Kansas State College.

Leadership Style as a Variable in Research Administration

Abstract: This article reports the relationship between leadership styles of laboratory directors in a government research organization and certain attitudes and motivations of the scientists within those laboratories. Three leadership styles were identified empirically: directive, laissezfaire, and participatory. The criterion variables were laboratory scores on value placed on research orientation, sense of progress toward research goals, and attitudes toward the laboratory director. The predicted results indicate that scientists working under a participatory leadership climate hold the most favorable attitudes and those working under a directive leadership climate hold the least favorable attitudes. Characteristics of the three leadership styles and methods of measuring them are discussed. The author is assistant professor of human relations and business administration in the University of Kansas.

Community Decision Making

Abstract: Three research approaches to the problems of decision making in local communities have been employed. One type of approach has focused on the characteristics of decision makers as the prime explanation of the decisions they make. A second approach has looked to the social environment of the decision maker for the major explanation, seeing in the activities of partisans-power or influence wielders-the major explanation for the types of decisions made. The third approach has centered on the decision-making process, attempting to follow an issue from inception to settlement. The author evaluates each approach, summarizing at the same time the major information each has yielded. A strategy for further research is suggested calling for comparative studies of decision makers in different institutional settings as they work through the careers of a variety of community issues. Such comparative studies will be able to transcend the particular and lead to a generalized frame of reference for understanding decision making in the local community.' The author is a faculty member of the Department of Sociology at

Economic Institutions and Human Welfare.

Abstract: This collection of essays deals not with economics in the technical sense, but with some of the human and community factors that underlie it.

Executives and Supervisors: Contrasting Definitions of Career Success

Abstract: In exploring the thesis that attitudes and values are basic determinants of career patterns, this paper empirically identifies and analyzes differential definitions of career success held by top-level executives and first-line supervisors. The executive, needing esteem and personal accomplishment, regards the achievement of high position essential for success. The supervisor, with a lower level of aspiration and less mobility drive, defines success in terms of security, respect, and happiness. While the executive is motivated toward continually higher achievement, the supervisor does not establish successively higher goals after attaining his modest ambitions. Implications for current theory concerning job motivation and morale are discussed. Roland J. Pellegrin is associate professor of sociology at Louisiana State University; Charles H. Coates is assistant dean of the College of Military Science and assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Power and Union-Management Relations

Abstract: Power relations are viewed as being systematic and as involving contests over who performs what functions, when, and how. Power relations are crucial in situations of functional interdependence. As illustrated in the analysis of union-management relations, power struggles do not typically result in social havoc. They are institutionalized social relations and are therefore orderly, even though full of conflict.' Robert Dubin is head of the Department of Sociology in the University of Oregon.

Bureaucracy East and West

Abstract: A study of the Egyptian higher civil service, based upon documentary, historical, and questionnaire data, raises some questions about the adequacy of bureaucratic theory developed in the West as a guide for the study of non-Western bureaucracies. Analysis of Egyptian data reveals a need to break the unitary concepts of bureaucratic behavior, attitudes, and professionalism into several parts. Bureaucratic predispositions and professionalism are thus seen to be more complicated than is usually assumed. The author is a member of the faculty of the Department of Economics and Sociology at Princeton University.

Executives and Supervisors: Informal Factors in Differential Bureaucratic Promotion

Abstract: In a comprehensive investigation of career patterns and vertical occupational mobility, fifty executives and fifty supervisors were asked to evaluate the relative importance of several informal factors in bureaucratic promotion. Both groups agreed that national origins, religion, political activity, and membership in secret societies are presently of much less universal importance in career advancement than such factors as family social standing and connections; membership in social, civic, and professional organizations; recreational activities and hobbies; judicious consumption; the influence of wives; the acquisition of the attitudes, values, and behavior patterns of successful superiors; and the establishment of higher-level friendships while retaining lower-level ones. The results are compared with previous findings concerning the influence of informal factors in career advancement. The general conclusions are that in complex, "other-directed," "human-relationsminded" bureaucracies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to measure individual job performance on the basis of merit alone. Particularly when formal criteria for promotion are either indistinct or not universally understood, informal factors associated with social conformity and congeniality tend to supplement or replace formal criteria.'

A Communication Model for Administration

Abstract: Although concepts derived from communications engineering have begun to influence social science, students of administration have not attempted to apply such concepts. The author suggests some possibilities for adapting communication theory. Administration is defined as decision making, and decisions are viewed essentially as communication phenomena. Organization is posited as an elaborate communication system, which suggests the possibility of a "learning net" type of model for studying organization. The concepts of feedback and homeostasis give such a model a dynamic quality. Finally, the elements of such a model and some uses to which it might be put are outlined. The author is assistant professor of political science in Michigan State University.

Hospital Administration- One of a Species

Abstract: Using hospital administration as the specific example, the author suggests three categories of analysis as necessary for the development of a typology of administration: (a) the social role of the institution or its place in the cultural environment; (b) the economic role; (c) the institution's internal structure. It is shown that the hospital's place in the community has changed and that a large measure of present administrative problems lie in the transitional state. The hospital's sources of supply, its consumer relationships, and its labor market are all influenced in some measure by this transition. The internal structure of the institution has become increasingly complex, and its authority system and organizational pattern have shifted accordingly. The author is a member of the faculty of the Course in Hospital Administration at the University of Minnesota.

The Bureaucrat and the Public: A Study of Informational Perspectives

Abstract: Sociological analysis assumes that an individual's position in a largescale administrative organization conditions his knowledge and administrative perspectives. Specific knowledge about clients (functional knowledge) can be distinguished from that concerning strategic goals and broader issues (substantive knowledge). An analysis of the impact of position in the organizational hierarchy of a sample of upperand lower-level public servants in three government agencies in the Detroit metropolitan area confirmed the accepted but untested proposition that the higher the position, the less knowledge about the clients of the agency (functional knowledge).1 Morris Janowitz is a member of the faculty of the Department of Sociology in the University of Michigan; William Delany teaches sociology in the University of Kansas.

Du Pont: Pioneer in Systematic Management

Abstract: This paper holds that the Du Pont Company has been one of the earliest and most important contributors to the advancement of systematic management. The development of this concept is traced through different stages of management-"Caesar," successorship, nonconformist, and adaptive management-beginning at the plant level of Repauno Chemical and Eastern Dynamite and rising ultimately to the administration of the entire Du Pont organization. The paper also examines the conditions of success of top-management group work at Du Pont. It finds that these conditions seem to be the result of a felicitous combination of a rationalist approach and a pragmatic approach, carried out by a carefully selected group of men.' Mr. Dale is associate professor in the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University.