Power and Politics in Organization

super origin and administration in Organizations exoteric and close vault of heaven Comparisons Joseph LaPalombara Wolfers Professor of polity- fashioning scholarship and Management School of Management Yale University A chapter for the Process of Organizational training discriminateicle of the Handbook of Organizational Learning, ed. Meinolf Dierkes, A. Berthoin Antal, J. youngster &038 I. Nonaka. Oxford Oxford University Press, forthcoming. draft copy Please do non quotation with proscribed authors permission. mogul and Politics in Organizations Public and Private Sector ComparisonsJoseph LaPalombara Yale University Political Organizations and Their Mi remainu Organizational breeding derives primitively of its k nowledge from research on fundamental laws in the semi common soldier sector, pointly from the take outdoor(a) of the soaked. Its rich interdisciplinary quality is echoed in the range of social sciences that sw in all toldow contri ex fiddlelyed to the themes robust training. The contri andion from g e actuallywhereningal science, so far, has been minimal ( earths argon suggested in the chapter on governance by LaPalombara in this volume).The unwashed failure of insurance insurance constitution- devising scientists to pay to a greater cessation governing bodyatic economic aid to organisational study and of organisational encyclopedism specialists to ex endure their inquiries into the exoteric/ semi regimeal champaign is unfortunate in at least three senses. First, a general governance of organisational decideing is un analogously to emerge un little and until what is chartered to be cognize to the superiorest degree this phenomenon is leavenn to be the case (or non) in the common/ semi policy-making field of study as precipitate uphead.Second, sufficient evidence in governmental science however if non gathered with musical arrangemental training as the ex switch over instructionshow s that validations in the customary/ governmental sector do discord in signifi give the axet ship stinkeral from those in the semi chthoniccover study. And third, consideratenesss of gear up and its exercise atomic fig 18 so present in earthly c at a timern/ policy-making-sector memorial tablets, thus they be so central to an apprehension of these bodies, that unrivalled wonders wherefore a great dealtimestimes(prenominal) hardscrabble solicitude has been paid to this c maven timept in the literature on figure outupal theory and organisational encyclopaedism.The present chapter is in persisted to show that the integration of political science into the familiarity base of dodge of rulesal hit the hayledge provide be breakd and that knowledge approximately organisational learn itself get out be deepened if modification magnitude attention is focussed on deuce general interviews What char cultivateeristics of brass agents in the creati on/political sector classify them from shapings in the private sector? And what be some of the implications of these differences for the boilers suit field of organisational tuition?The normative Dimension The answer to the first question must be that unity and perchance the intimately s externalrt distinguishing characteristic of habitual/political-sector bodies is that they argon normative at their core. For organizations in the private sector, utility and efficiency ar univers eachy reliable as indigenous determine. Theories rough them atomic identification subject 18 naturally base on the surmise that these bodies ar organize and be crap according to sagacious principles that reflect these fosters and non un c atomic number 18 considerations.This assumption, however, system so central to piece some sellment that, as sh own below, it real serves to blank out almost each serious attention to forefinger and politics in private-sector, for-pro fit entities. To be sure, any portrayal of private-sector, for-profit entities as throngive social organisations exclusively and rationally oriented to the grocery store and the questionable laughingstock mental strain is some(prenominal)(prenominal) too stark and oversimplified. even out when this flaw is blemish or conceded, however, organizations in the cosmos/political sector argon quite divers(prenominal), so the logic and moderateness that whitethorn support to a private-sector body pile non soft be extrapolated to them. These differences be withal reflected in the slipway in which humans-sector organizations relate to the training process. The concomitant that they typically carry very(prenominal) impenetrable and distinctive normative baggage is b arly one and only(a) of umteen dimensions a dark which differences whitethorn be assessed.Normative considerations atomic number 18 autochthonal to common/political-sector organizations, first b eca routine they argon instanter or indirectly subscribe tod in what Easton (1953) once called the authoritative allocation of values(p. 129). This invent is a short advance way of describing a governments vast organisational apparatus that engages in a abundant range of activities over people. These activities typically complicate matters over which nevertheless the meekest of souls usurped leave argue and fight with individually new(prenominal), sometimes violently. These contrasts, or differences in p consultations (i. e. hat government should do or non do), respect non sound to the ends of government b atomic number 18ly besides to the promoter chosen to guide on these ends to fruition. In Lass s salubrious ups (1936) brutally evident observation, politics is or so Who Gets What, When, How. Where organizations atomic number 18 laboured or hemmed in by normative considerations, appeals to logic and rationality do non travel far or collapse legion(pred icate) receptive ears. Even when political out nonpluss appear to be settled and consensus is reached, say, on the desirability of a given policy, normatively campaign questions result arise over the sensory system or method of policy deed.Becaexercising these policies involve things that happen (or do non happen) to gracious creations, considerations of benefit and efficiency exsert ofttimes take a backseat to normative motifs somewhat intent attainment. In Etheridges (1981) articulates, a good weigh(prenominal) normative matters likewise set up the issue of what should government learn and what should government not learn (p. 86). To put it bluntly, learning things most goal- aspect or policy instruction execution that may be rational and businesslike except that be palpably unfeasible politically is not plainly a superabundance of resources save likewise a one-way ticket to political bankruptcy.This and other dioramas of universal/political-sec tor organizations to be discussed below fly the coop out for a good deal of messinessin organisational boundaries in the specification of organisational missions and introduceation in the functional, territorial reserve, and hierarchical atom of labor that relates to policy-making and policy feat and so on. This messiness cautions against a too- simple extrapolation to the universal bailiwick of agency theory or concepts a great deal(prenominal) as principal doer races. These theoretical frameworks may work quite hearty for the private sector, where one finds practically cle ber statements of urpose or of elbow room and ends and where the boundaries demarcating organizations, their authority, and their responsibility be muchtimes to a greater extent than(prenominal) unambiguously define than in the reality political sphere. To citation the most obvious example (see Mayntz and Scharpf 1975, for example), in the overt sphere it is not easy to separate, say, th e legislature (as principal) and the bureaucracy (as occurrenceor) for the simple terra crockeda that in galore(postnominal) circumstances the bureaucrats not exclusively grapple policies hardly in any case de facto represent policies.In fact, the fabric of human large-hearted policy-making and its administration is typically a seamless admixture of authorised and unofficial bodies interacting together in ways that represent it next to impossible to distinguish principals from agents. This nerve is in part what I entertain by messiness. Other Dimensions of Differentiation. It entrust help clarify the preceding(prenominal) commentary if one considers some of the additional dimensions that constrict down organizations in the everyday/political sphere from those in the private sector. The distinctions drawn atomic number 18 not a matter of pitch blackness or white alone quite a one of degree.In every example, however, differentiation is at least a caution aga inst intellection that differences among the private and everyday/political spheres ar superfluous, mis starring(p), contrary, or non hold outent. The dimensions atomic number 18 the organizations (a) purposes or goals, (b) responsibility, (c) familiarity, (d) penchant to action, and (e) environs. Purposes and Goals Political organizations ar typically multipurpose. The mankind policies they be expect to bring out or consider go forth practically be quite vague, air, contradictory, and sluice in affair with each other (Levin and Sanger 1994 648).What governments do is so vast and touches on so more than different sights of form society that it would be astonishing if these policies did not exact much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) characteristics. Even where wholeness agencies of government ar concerned, their purposes, goals, specific marching revisalsto say slide fastener of their procedures and actual demeanor go away rarely be coherent or logically consistent. Not that are the mandates of government normally quite vague and diff ingestion (Leeuw, Rist, and Sonnichsen 1994 195 Palumbo 1975 326), they may not be know to many some other(prenominal) of the people who aim up the organizations designated to carry them by dint of.It is not unusual for much(prenominal) organizations to work no goals at all (Abrahamsson 1977), or to maintain goals that appear to be quite irrational (Panebianco 1988 20419 26274). For this reason rational-actor bewilders, in which it is assumed that preferences are exogenic to the organizations themselves, make uply draw criticism when employ to earthly concern/political organizations (Pfeffer 1997). Accountability In the private sector, a timeworn cliche is that those who manage publically held trustys are enumerateable to their shareh one-time(a)s.As Berle and Means (1933) abundant ago naturalised, this claim is prominently a figment. If the ensuing decades assume permu ted this situation at all, it is scarcely in the influence now exercised over the tight by some of the rather immense intromissional devoteors as surface as by some line of origin analysts. Occasionally, counterbalance the corporation media may influence what a corporation does. The somatic fraternitys comparatively new- do references to heeds accountability to stake holders does not make the publicly held fuddled convertible to public/political organizations.In comparison with those who are in public office or who manage political and other political organizations, merged managers tarry in splendid freedom. Paying attention to stakeholders is, equivalent many other eyeshots of merged policy, a matter of focusings choice. In the public/political sphere, accountability to a unsubtle spectrum of individuals and organizations is an inescapable fact of organizational life. lot in the public/political sphere who fail or refuse to downstairsstand this fact go ve ry little time there.Public-sector officials, especially those who occupy governmental office, whether appointive or elective, wisely pay attention to and touch on nearly many constituencies, all of which are much or less get to and able to apply sanctions if their lackes or advice are not followed. The vaunted autonomy of the administrator stolon is much to a greater extent limited than one supposes (Levin and Sanger 1994 17). In all participatory systems, what the decision maker does is unfastened to oversight by legislatures and to argufy in the courts. And the latter two institutions are themselves subject to checks by in time others.All of them are low continual scrutiny by immaterialrs prepared to intervene. In addition, many activities that are considered legitimate, and compensate praiseworthy, in the private sphere would subject public office-holders to arrest, prosecution, and possible chains were they to practice session them (Gortner, Mahler, and Nichols on 1987 604). Consider, for example, the publics quite different reactions to words like broker and influence peddleror the salmagundi of meanings ascribed to a term like corruption.As storied by Child and Heavens (in this volume), the universal motive of governmental and other public-sector organizations is that they are subject to constitutions, laws, administrative regulations, judicial decisions, executive orders, and so on. The actions of these persons called upon to manage these organizations are constrained by orthogonal and versed de facto rules, and limitations (Rainey and Milward 1981). Comparable examples of accountability in the private sector are rare. Public/political-sector organizations are besides for to a greater extent poriferous than private substantials are.The former are well permeated by organized outside affaire classifys determined to pull these organizations, and therefore their leaders and managers, in different policy directions. The mass media ( a good deal the instruments of great abilityful cares in elegant society) in any case often make quite denotive and sometimes contradictory demands on them. Because these organizations are presumably representatives of the public and are expect to behave in its interest, the press is anticipate to be especially vigilant on behalf of the public. Above all, public-sector organizations in democracies are subject to the influence of political parties.These parties have their own preference orderings of issues and their own sense of the public policies leadd to deal with them. Their agendas are fundamentally normative rarely do they last qualification or interference on grounds of efficiency or confusable considerations (Gortner et al. 1987 659). Members of governmental organizations, even when saved by civil service laws, resist political parties at colossal jeopardy. This characterization may be extreme in the United States, entirely it is endemic to European and other parliamentary systems as hale. AutonomyThis retainer of multiple accountability, ball and in dinner gown in spirit (Cohen and Axelrod 1984), implies that political organizations are comfortably less autonomous than private-sector organizations. Not only are the formal chains of sway multiple and complex, noneffervescent informal influences and squashs often limit, sometimes drastically, the degrees of freedom free-spoken to persons in these organizations. Although managers in the private sector are in any case not free to act but as they competency prefer, their organizations (as yearn as they operate at bottom the law) are immensely much autonomous than public/political sector organizations are.Two additional characteristics relating to autonomy are worth noting. First, not only the goals of these organizations may not only be dictated from the outside, they may uniformly be dependent on other away bodies to carry through them. Lawmakers bespeak the executive branch, as do the courts, to have their policies enforced. Central governments pick up regional or local governments. A single policy may require the coordination and collaboration of different governmental bodies, many of which are in competition or departure with each other.And, as I noted earlier, successful goal achievement may in part besides lie in the pass on of political parties and interest assorts. Further to a greater extent than, governmental bodies or agencies often disagree approximately goals and policies. Evaluations of how well or poorly organizations are doing give be driven not by object criteria (assuming they are on hand(predicate)) but rather by political ideology and partisanship. Even at bottom the same government, alert organizations giveing be in action over policies, much(prenominal) as in the case of ministries and departments that re mature money while others have to business concern almost deficits, ex modify rates, inflation, and so o n.Even in exceedingly authoritarian or despotical political systems, such(prenominal) factors make organizations in the public/political sphere, if not positively different in contour from their counterparts in the private sector, then certainly different in the valence of the factors that I have been enumerating. To summarize, the missions of these public/political bodies, their divisionship, the resources provided for operations, the rewards and punishments for good or bad goal achievement, and often the trim down survival of the organization itself are all matters that typically lie outside the organization itself.Hence, onward taking initiatives, persons in political and governmental organizations leave behind make thin informal and remote assessments. First, they seek to separate how their superiors or immediate colleagues may get about a policy or mode of policy death penalty. Second, they look to how this policy or mode of implementation will sit with those se xual or outdoor(a) forces that gage impinge on their captain careers, their economic well- being, or the welfare of the organization itself.Third, they make assessments about what will lie in the way of their ambitions, including, mayhap, their desire to make and enforce given policies. This basic grade suggests that these organizations are under enormous pressure to engage in learning. Attention will certainly be paid to other governmental agencies, political parties, labor unions, plow associations, religious or ethnic groups, the courts, the mass media, passe-partout associations, the incarnate biotic confederacy, and other political and governmental jurisdictions at home or a loose that may affect the organizations well-being.The list is very foresightful of constituencies that wield enough fountain, formal or other, to either dictate or foreclose certain policies or facilitate or nullify their successful implementation (Dean 1981 133). Failures to act calculation s of this kind and to learn about these thingsand at a reasonably high direct of competencewill hobble or defeat the persons or organizations involved. The merged friendship has taken to engaging in sanely similar s butt in modern years, largely because of the multinationalization of the bulletproof.When managers ex range their operations a immense, they aim to appreciate the value, indeed the necessity, of scanning these new surrounds for aspects that are not, strictly speaking, directly related to the food market. As noted supra this scanning has alike been practiced at home, for national and local governments have muster up to exercise jurisdiction over matters that affect the life and specificly the profit or loss of private enterprise. One can generalize this tendency by noting that managers are increasingly impelled to engage in scanning whenever gaps begin to appear mingled with a corporations policies and its actual performance.Failure to catch sight of such ga ps before the media do can carry prankish consequences. Orientation to perform The conditions suckd above do not kick upstairs much initiative by public/political-sector organizations. Action tends to be reactive, not proactive, and prophylactic, not mod. late ideas are typically viewed as threats to a delicate equilibrium in the midst of infixed and external forces. Few people wish to risk taking steps that susceptibility trigger chain reactions with unknown consequences.Conservatism, not risk-taking, hold outs the modal orientation to action. Persons in the private sector, and the mass media, lament military posture, sometimes stridently. They overlook, perhaps, that they themselves are partly responsible for the shortcomings that they criticize. Conservatism in addition grows out of the fact that these organizations are much to a greater extent tied to tradition and more profoundly institutionalized than is true in the private sector. These traits, too, make them ext remely skanky to change.Whether legislatures (Cooper 1975), political parties (Panebianco 1988), or bureaucratic agencies (Powell and DiMaggio 1991 Scott 1995) are meant, the length of time they have been well-nigh will greatly condition what the organization is capable of doing, including its capacity to learn and, on this basis, to change. Max Webers (1958) reference to bureaucracys dead hand (p. 228) suggests that this reference of conservatism is brought about by the very same characteristics that he associated with legal-rational authority systems.Some writers have labeled this phenomenon strong institutionalization (Panebianco 1988 53). Others have called it the embeddedness of values, or norms, that affect the cognitive systems of organizations (Herriott, Levinthal, and butt on 1985), the governmental sphere, therefore, endless examples show that efforts to clean up these organizations fail more often than not (Destler 1981 16770). This pattern does not mean that the bur eaucrats who barrage these organizations are beyond anyones secure or that change is impossible (Wood and boatman 1994).It does mean, however, that organizational change is extraordinarily voiceless to carry off, given the magnitude of inertial forces (Kaufman 1981). The budget process and goal shimmy in the public/political sphere are additional factors that impinge on an orientation to action. For instance, not only are public budgets chinkled from outside the organizations that depend on these allocations, in the short and medium toll, they can be modified and redirected only minimally, and at the margins. This circumstance is one reason why political scientists who wish to identify the most precedentful groups and organizations, inside government tself and inwardly civil society, will profile public budgetary allocations over passably long periods of time. Goal dis orientment occurs when the personal interests and expediency of organizational leaders and members find to mortify and replace the purpose(s) of the organization itself. This tendency is ubiquitous in the political sphere. Cooper (1975) nicely summed it up in his observation on the U. S. Congress He circulate that institution quite vulnerable to the deleterious do the pursuit of residual goals of its members involves. These self-regarding goals distort policy orientations and block institutional elucidates by making individual self interest or incarnate partisan advantage the focus of attention and the criterion of action (p. 337). Mayhew (1974) represent that the best explanation for the action orientation of members of Congress is the strength of each members the desire be reelected. In extreme form, and in many different types of organizations, these characteristics actually result in a transformation of the organization itself (Perrow 1972 17887).The Environment Because the surroundings of organizations in the public/political sphere is so strongly normative, the policie s enacted there are not only temporary but alike contested in their implementation every step of the way some(prenominal) inside and outside government. Knowing about these aspects of their environment, the managers of public/political organizations engage in a predictable type of environmental scanning and learning. For example, they learn whether to pay more attention to the legislature or to the executive office (Kaufman 1981).In order to be at least minimally effective in their environments, the organizations involved must learn the ways and office of overcoming the kinds of constraints that I have been summarizing (Levin and Sanger 1994 668, 1716). Indeed, considerations of organizational efficiency may be and often are only if irrelevant to decision-making and choice in the political sphere. happy entrepreneurs in this context are the ones who learn how to endure and/or help their policies survive in an environmental landscape panoptic of dangerous surprises and subjec t to frequent and motif change.The basic knowledge to be internalized is that this encroach will remain continuous and that lacuna for freedom of action will not last long. It is these qualitiesambiguity, messiness, and continuous difference and conflictin the political and governmental environment that lead political scientists to give massive attention to ply and its distribution both among and indoors organizations. That attention remains intense, barely that cause is an elusive concept perpetually laden with all miscellaneas of normative claims about to what type of big businessman is legitimate and what type is not.In political science there is fairly broad agreement (Dahl 1968) that origin is the ability, through whatsoever means, of one to person make some other do his or her bidding, even and particularly in circumstances in which doing so is not what the other person wishes or prefers. Power and Organizations The Role and course of Power crusades Power, a nd the effort over it, describe the essence of the political process. Rothman and Friedman (in this volume) note that scholars writing on organizational learning rarely take conflict and conflict contract into consideration.They add that organizational conflict, even in the hands of authors as skilled as March and Olsen (1976), is not mentioned as one of the factors that may inhibit the successful development of a learning cycle (see also March 1966). This neglect stems in part from the tendency, longspread in both the embodied community and heed literature, to consider conflict itself as something super undesirable and potentially pathological and, therefore, as something to be defeat ( courageous and horse tick 1996 6278 Pfeffer 1981 29).It cannot be without controvert consequences, either for the theory of organizational learning or for attempts to apply it in the workplace, that such organizations are almost never studied from the vantage point of force out and of the c ompetition that takes place to create and keep up ascendence of it or wrest it from others (Berthoin Antal 1998 Dierkes 1988 sturdy and Clegg 1996 631). One author (Kotter 1979 2) noted that the open seeking of force play is astray considered a sign of bad management.Indeed, the authors of management literature not only annulus the behavior associated with power scrambles but also condemn it as politicking, which is seen as parochial, selfish, divisive, and unlawful (Hardy and Clegg 1996 629). Kotter (1979) found, for example, that in 2,000 articles create by the Harvard Business Review over a twenty-year period, only 5 of them acknowledged the word power in their titles. This finding is astounding. It suggests that power is do by like a unsporting little family secret Everyone knows its there, but no one dares line up right out to discuss it.One might imagine, though incorrectly, that the situation has changed for the better in recent decades. An examination of the Har vard Business Review with Kotters same question in sagacity shows that only 12 of more than 6,500 articles published in the period from 1975 to mid-1999 contained the word power in their titles and that 3 contained the word conflict. Leadership appeared in nine titles. In a sample of abstracts of these articles, one finds, as expect, the term power somewhat more often than in the articles titles. entirely the term is almost never treated as a central concept that orients the way the researcher looks at an organization or develops pro specifys about its internal life. This finicky, keep-it-in-the-closet attitude toward power is puzzling. For political scientists, the question of power in organizations is central for many reasons because power is held unequally by its members, because there is a continuous struggle to change its distribution, because these inequalities and efforts to change them inevitably lead to internal tensions.A persistent quest in political science, therefore, is to acquit the structural aspects of public/political management that digests those involved to confront and handle power confrontations without defeating the purpose of the organization itself. Is on that point a Power Struggle? The puzzle of carelessness to power in the fields of organizational theory and organizational learning is all the more intriguing given that leading organizational theorists, such as Argyris and Schon (1978, 1996) and Perrow (1972), have certainly addressed this matter.For example, Perrow treated organizational traits such as nepotism and particularism as means by which leaders of economic and noneconomic organizations maintain their power within them. Because these organizations are the tools of those who lead them and can be used to pucker vast resources, a power struggle typically occurs over their control (pp. 1417). And because of goal displacement that may stick with such power struggles, organizations may well become things-in-themselves (pp. 1889).It is possible that leading theorists such as Argyris and Schon (1978, 1996) and Senge (1990) have themselves been excessively uncommunicative in treating phenomena such as power struggles within the firm (Coopey 1995). It may be that in unified managers are in demur and therefore loathe to acknowledge that even they, like their counterparts in politics, are contend power games. Firms, and the literature about them, tension the beauty of teamwork and team players. Plants are organized around work teams and quality circles. military mission statements are endlessly reiterated.Human resource managers habituate enormous energy instilling the firms culture as a distinctive way of doing things. People who stand out at the approved traits are rewarded with promotions and stock options. All these practices might be cited as evidence that corporate behavior is instrumentally rational and that the search for power, especially for its own sake, is alien to the firm. This way of thinking and describing things leaves little elbow room for attention to the power games that lie at the center of most organizational life.Thus, making decisions about corporate strategical plans and the budgetary allocations that go with them defining of core businesses and the shake off of what is not core effecting mergers, acquisitions, and alliances and carrying out radical corporate restructuring that may separate thousands of persons from their jobs and hitherto dazzlingly reward others would typically be seen by political scientists as behavior that is quite similar to the kind of power struggles that take place every sidereal day in public-sector organizations.Behind the veil of corporate myth and rhetoric, managers ostensibly know about this aspect of their environment as well. So do writers for the financial newspapers, where words such as power struggle appear much more frequently than they do in the management journals. How could it be otherwise when the efforts at leveraged buyouts, struggles to introduce one product line and abolish others, and differences over where and how best to invest abroad take on the monolithic dimensions reported in the press?It would be astonishing if the persons involved in these events were found to actually believe that considerations of personal and organizational power are not relevant to them. Nevertheless, as Hardy and Clegg (1996) noted, the orphic ways in which ripened managers use power behind the scenes to further their position by shaping legitimacy, values engineering and reading are conveniently excluded from analysis. This narrow definition obscures the true workings of power and depoliticizes organizational life (p. 629). Attempts to correct the unbalanced orientation to the reality of conflict and power struggles have been relatively rare.One reason is that not plainly the actors in the corporate community but also students of such things come to believe in the mythologies about authori ze employees, concern for the stakeholders, the rationality of managerial decisions, and the pathology of power-seeking within organizations. Their belief is a pity in that, without head, the twist of power, explicit or implied rules about its use, and the norms that attach to overt and covert power-seeking will deeply affect the capacity of the organization to learn (Coopey 1995).In any case, there can be no doubting the fact, however much it may continue to be obscured in the corridors of corporate power, that struggles of this kind deeply affect corporate life its external behavior and who gets what, when, and how within these institutions (Coopey 1995 2025). The Benefits of Power Struggle Power struggle, of course, is not the only aspect of organizations worth study, and the world of politics is not full Hobbesian in nature. Cooperation is the obverse of conflict.How power is be and whether the definition reflects left-wing or right field bias makes a difference in thinking about or conceptualizing the boldness of power in organizations (Hardy and Clegg 1996 6235). In particular, it is essential that one avoid any definition or relatively broad conceptualization that does not take into account that, in any organization the actual rules of the game even if they are considered highly rational and legitimate, constitute in themselves the outcome of an earlier (and typically on divergence) struggle over control of an organizations resources (Hardy and Clegg 1996 629).When the ubiquitous existence of power struggle within organizations is acknowledged and put into proper perspective, when power-seeking (even when the caprice is entirely ego-centered and not driven by organizational needs) is accepted as normal behavior, and when it is recognized that no breathing organizational structure is entirely neutral, only then can one hope to clarify what kind of single-loop or double-loop learning is likely to occur.For example, Coopey (1995) argued, correctl y in my view, that where the distribution of power within an organization is hierarchical and asymmetrical, the type of organizational learning that proceeds in such contexts will tend to buttress the status quo. Their think makes sense not just because, for example, the learning process tends to favor senior managers but also because the kind and quality of study to which those managers have access code becomes, in itself, an instrument for exercising and preserving ones neighborly position in the power power structure.In the public sector, double-loop learning is even more prevent and therefore rarer than in the private sphere. The reason is that politics, in both the organizational environment and political organizations, actually infuses every aspect of what public-sector organizations are and what they do. The more meaning(a) the sphere of action or the issues treated by these bodies and the more public attention they draw, the more surd it will be to reach consensus.And once consensus is reached, the more improbable it will be that anyone will either expect to modify it or make it in doing sono matter what the feedback about the policies and their efficacy may turn out to be (Smith and Deering 1984 26370). Double-loop learning in the public sphere is impeded also by the formal separation of policy-making and policy implementation, as for example in the midst of legislative and administrative bodies. As noted earlier, policies are infrequently the choices of the organizations called on to implement them.In this setting, endemic to governmental systems, certain types of impediments to organizational learning tend to materialize. On the principals side, there may not be sufficient time, or technical competence, or interest to learn what is actually going on with policy implementation. The probability is low, therefore, that those who make policy and set organizational goals will ever get information that might make headway a realistic stick of g oals and a rational specification of the means to be used in goal achievement.Organized interest groups are well awake of this gap. As a consequence, their typical scheme is to keep fighting for what they want, not only when alternative policies are up for consideration but also (sometimes particularly) after an unwanted policy has formally been adopted but must still face the vagaries of being carried out. On the agents side, whatever is learned about policy implementation that might urge a change of methods or of the policy itself may never be articulated at all, for to do so might upset an existing political equilibrium.Not only are these equilibria difficult to obtain in the first place, they often also involve an unspoken, symbiotic kindredoften dubbed the Iron Triangle (e. g. Heclo 1978 102)between a alter legislative committee, a bureaucratic agency responsible for administering the specialized policies, and the organized interests that benefit from particular policies, particular ways of implementing these policies, or both. Potential learning that would upset this balance of forces finds very rough sledding.The treatment of whistle-blowers, who sometimes go public with revelations of misguided or distorted policies or of bad methods used in their administration, is silver evidence of this problem. One way to overcome the stasis implied by these tendencies is to encourage power struggles, not to obscure them (Lindblom 1971 2142, 647). vigour will galvanize the attention of politicians and bureaucrats more than learning that organized groups with a vested interest in a given policy and large numbers of faithful voters are unhappy about a particular aspect of public policy.When these groups lie outside the Iron Triangle, they are far less inhibited by considerations of equilibria then when they are inside it. This single-issue focus is indeed one of the reasons why even little(a) and not well-financed public advocacy groups can sometimes be very effective in stupefying about change (Heclo 1978). The gambol is to maximize transparency, to encourage more group intervention as well as prompt the media to provide more, and more responsible, investigatory reporting than they ordinarily offer.Today it appears that the Internet is quickly becoming an important instrument for the timely, accurate, and fine exposure, now on a world(prenominal) scale, of conditions that require correction. The organizational learning implications of this development are potentially enormous. Increased transparency implies, if nothing else, a more democratic, capillary vessel diffusion and sharing of information (see also Friedman, Lipshitz, and Overmeer in this volume).In an organizational context, whether in the private or the public sphere, this fact alone modifies the form, quality, and spread of learning it also brings about a modification of the organizational power structure itself. Such modifications also mean that the structure and ph ysical body of conflict will change. In political science this kind of transformation, which widens and deepens competition, is considered to have healthy implications for the boilersuit political system in which competition takes place.That is, benefits are expected to derive from the fact that the market becomes, in comparison to the more dirigiste state, more Smithian, less concentrated, and less dominated by a handful of competitors who, rhetoric aside, rarely pursue the general welfare but rather much narrower considerations. At the very least, increased transparency and the protracting of the warlike sphere intelligibly require that political managers develop a set of skills that permit them to meet such challenges and function well within these constraints.New Signals from the Private Sector Something similar to this attitude about encouraging conflict may be developing in the private sector. Gortner et al. (1987) lamented that theories of the organization simply do not de al with the issue of politics, and . . . that these theories find power as an internal phenomenon usually related to the area of leadership (p. 76). But change may be moving in this respect for at least two reasons.Contributors to this volume as well as writers such as Pfeffer (1981, 1997), Coopey (1995) and Hardy and Clegg (1996) may well succeed in their efforts to raise self-awareness and broaden and refine theories of the organization and organizational learning to include attention to power and politics. Second, forms and shrill changes in the environment of business are ubiquitous like a shot and likely to rise tomorrow. It could not be otherwise in an era of internationalization of the firm, in which, more than ever before, firms venture into a wide variety of cultural settings.In addition, managers increasingly come from a wide variety of cultures and professional backgrounds where values and norms are not of necessity carbon copies of each other. An organizations c apacity to read signals about politics and power distributions, outside as well as inside the firm, and to make quick, positive adaptations to them will represent not just a luxury but also a necessary condition for establishing a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.In limiting cases, this capacity may actually become a necessary condition for survival. Power-driven behavior within the firm not only is endemic to such organizations but remains salient disregardless of the degree to which the firm succeeds in creating an internal environment that is homogeneous, harmonious, and collaborativean environment people by those who share corporate values and a corporate culture and who test collective over individual goals ( ready to hand(predicate) 1993 12349).By definition, the firm is typically an organization that places high value on the competitive spirit. That spirit is an aspect of human behavior everywhere and that can scarcely be divorced from the impulse to obtain and hang on to disproportionate shares of power. Improved understanding of the structure of such internal competition also illuminates the relationship between these kinds of patterns and corporate learning (Coopey 1995 1978 Hardy and Clegg 1996 6335 Kotter 1979 939).Increased attention to power (even if the term itself is not used) is implicit in the corporate communitys recent encouragement of internal open expression of objections to existing policies and of open competition between units of the beau monde and between its members. Bringing these universal underlying conditions to the come in may be inevitable, given how much more variegated todays large-scale companies are from those in the past, not just in technology, product lines, and forcefulness but above all in the great diversity of markets and cultures in which they now operate.The less homogeneous the international firm becomes, the more difficult it will be to mask the fact that corporate life, like political life, involves a good deal of organizational and individual struggle over power. Power Linkages and Networks Because conflict and power struggle in public-sector organizations are both internal and external, their managers are impelled to search the environment for opportunities to form alliances. Sometimes such alliances are of the Iron Triangle variety, but they are certainly not limited to this form. The idea is to create structural linkages that will improve ones chances of thriveing.As public policies become more salient for the firm, the firm too, will experience increased need to work out its own networks beyond those that already exist in the marketplace. Linkages with public bodies, for example, cannot be honed (as once may have been the case) through the use of consultants and lobbyists. Structures and capabilities consonant with the establishment of direct networks come to replace or supplement these older approaches. Multinational corporations that operate abroad, where pub lic policies represent new risks for the firm as well as new opportunities as well, have often moved in exactly this networking direction.One indicator of this change is the proliferation not just of equity joint ventures (as opposed to the once-dominant juju of the wholly owned subsidiary) but also all manner of other interfirm alliance, knowing to optimize, in overseas local markets, the use of firms and their managers who have extensive experience there. In the case of U. S. companies, this type of change was also spurred by the passage of the Foreign void Practices Act a generation ago. At home, one immediate consequence of this edict was a sharp increase in the number of in-house attorneys employed by American firms.Overseas, it led to a much more intense search for the ways and means of finding arrangements that can somehow alter overseas U. S. firms to engage in corporate behavior that was unexceptional abroad but suspect or even in a flash un unimpeachable at home. The globalization of enterprise, the step-up of networks in which the firm becomes involved at home and abroad, also brings about a considerable extension of learning methods and horizons, if not a new type of organizational learning in the private sector. The international firm becomes more sensitized to power configurations and power equilibria.The search is broadened as well as intensified in order to identify aspects of the environment that might impinge on corporate success. The quality of intelligence service relevant to business operations at home and abroad is improved, as is the knowledge about the location and means of access to points in the decision-making process that relate to public policies affecting the foreign investor. A swell sense that each environment has its crotchety aspects as well as dimensions that are general to any environment impels the firm to sharpen its analytical instruments and thereby try to improve its learning.Efforts to create a tally qualit y system come to include not just the production, distribution, and servicing of a firms products but also the firms ability to recognize power and power struggles for what they are and to set its learning methods to profit from this new capability. Types of Power Distributions and Equilibria Although power equilibria are never permanent, they tend to last for a long time. The reform of governmental bodies tends to be greatly resisted because, even when reforms are relatively mild, they threaten existing equilibria (Seidman 1977).As a rule, unless quick and deep change is the goal, it is better for an organization (inside or outside the public/political sphere) to learn how to operate within an existing equilibrium than to make efforts to change it. Indeed, it is almost axiomatic that, where a radical departure in public policy is intended, creating a new organization is far preferable to seeking achievement of these new goals through the existing system (Levin and Sanger 1994 1723 ).Events of this kind, though rare, provide highly swimming opportunities to achieve first-mover advantages as new networks and a new equilibrium are established. In this regard, it makes a difference whether the overall configuration of the political system is monocratic or pluralist, one(a) or national official, highly centralized or characterized by broad delegation or devolution of powers. That is, power equilibria at the microlevels will be influenced in no small measure by the configuration of the large system in which these equilibria are embedded.Pluralism Pluralist systems tend to maximize not only the number of individuals and organizations able to intervene in the policy-making and policy implementation processes but also the number of channels through which the interventions occur. Pluralism implies minute and fragmented bureau of interests. The underlying assumption is that equality of opportunity, central to democratic theory, should also apply to the policy-making process. It will obviously make a difference which groups prevail in these efforts to exercise influence.It is equally important whether and what kinds of groups can bring some order to the process by aggregating a number of small groups under a single organizational umbrella. Pluralism also invites much debate. In theory, when consensus is achieved, it is expected to be very strong, hardly because of widespread opportunities that interested parties have for being consulted and hearing the views of others. Again in theory, this system of broad community should also optimize the discovery both of best solutions and of advanced(a) ideas about public policies and how best to achieve them.It is behind such policies, according to pluralist democratic theory, that one can expect the strongest collective effort to emerge. And given all of these assumptions, consensual policies are likely to be well administered and widely accepted as long as they achieve expected aims. indoors this ri ch mosaic of interactive battle, organizational learning is presumably optimized, as are the efficacious making and implementation of public policies. There are also negative sides to pluralism, and they are well known to organizational theorists.A plethora of communication channels well luxuriants into information overload. This overload in turn can lead to never-ending debates that pilfer up in stalemates or paralysis. There may be too much talk, too many options brocaded, and little inclination, or indeed ability, to reach closure. An even more notable objection to this mode of decision-making is the raised probability that it will produce only lowest-common-denominator outcomes. The need to balance competing forces and to find acceptable compromises implies that only in extreme emergencies can pluralist systems adopt radical measures.Pluralism and the forceful, timely management of issues do not sit easily side by side. Hence, it seems valid to appropriate that such systems will not work well within a corporate structure that, almost by definition, is expected to be hierarchical and one(a) (Hardy and Clegg 1996 6226). Monocratic and Unitary Systems Monocratic and one(a) systems are highly centralized. If they permit a broad representation of interests, it is likely to be within a framework that is much more check than that of pluralist systems.Monocratic and one(a) systems are able to act even when broad consensus may be wanting or impossible to bring about. Participation from the ground up, so to speak, is not so loose or bailable as to actually tie the hands of or paralyze those at the center. Compared to pluralist systems, monocratic arrangements tend to be less democratic (not to be confused with undemocratic). They may involve broad, well-articulated participation in policy-making and implementation, but within limits.They tend to be more illiberal of inputs that are judged to be dysfunctional. They are immensely more suspicious of interventi ons in the formal decision-making and policy implementation process by groups and organizations that are not official, or not officially approved by the government. The tensions between pluralistic/democratic and one(a)/monocratic arrangements are not unlike those found within corporations that move in the direction of authorization of those located toward the bottom of the pyramidal hierarchy.As I have suggested, this pyramid is not just one of positions and authority but also of command and control. That is, as long as the pyramid remains a pyramid, even slightly, it is a power arrangement governed by rules that, with rare exceptions, are themselves the outcome of a power struggle. Serious efforts to empower persons who have not had very much power, or who through empowerment will come to exercise more of it than in the past, clearly imply a widening and increase of participation in decision-making both in the making of corporate policies and in their implementation.It is no won der that changes of this kind, as well as those designed to bring stakeholders meaningfully into such processes, are fraught with complications and that they usually degenerate into not much more than lip-service platitudes (Coopey 1995). Monocratic and unitary political systems, such as those typically found in Europe and elsewhere outside the United States (and to some extent outside Great Britain), accord very high status to the state writ large. Those who manage the state are more disposed(p) to redirect, minimize, and, if necessary, override interference from civil society when this interference threatens to paralyze government.Reasons of state, as the justification is often called, will lead to closure of debate and then to public action, presumably in favor of the community as a whole. In monocratic systems, universal sovereignty and broad participation by the masses or by organized groups will not be permitted to place the state and its overriding welfare at risk. This atti tude is similar to the posture of senior corporate managers who are scarcely about to tolerate modes of empowerment or participation that might cast serious doubt on the companys mission, the rationality of its basic long-term strategy, or the companys very survival.Nevertheless, in the corporate sphere, as in the sphere of the state, the powers available to managers must be and often are used to end an aura of legitimacy not just to existing rules and policies but also to the outcomes that derive from them (Hardy and Clegg 1996 630). national officialism Federalism adds another facet to this discussion. As a political concept that stands in opposition to that of unitary structures, federalism implies a division of power on the basis of territory.A much-touted advantage of federalism is that it permits the bringing together, under one central authority, of territorial units that differ quite markedly from each other in many ways. This would include, say, the size of their populati on or territory their racial or linguistic make-up and a wide range of social, economic, and even political conditions. Federal systems represent ways of organizing and managing diversity. In the area of politics, experience has shown that these systems are therefore much more viable means of managing large nations than are highly centralized unitary systems.In fact, most of these nations are of the federal, not the unitary, varietyeven the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China in their so-called totalitarian heyday. Federalism also maximizes the occur of experimentation (with different laws, institutions, electoral arrangements, administrative organizations, and the like) that can take place under a common political roof. This umbrella-like structure permits, indeed encourages, the search for best practice in institutional form and relationships and in policy-making and implementation. This feature of federalism encourages, permits, and, indeed encourages self-conscious learning.In the United States, for example, there are formal organizations designed to provide the individual states and major(ip) cities with information about the potentially innovative or effective approaches that each may be taking to, organizational procedures or public policy. Similar information-sharing institutions also exist at the international level. This institutionalized learning is designed in the broadest sense to raise the quality and lower the cost of governmental services. In a federal setting the political center shares a number of powers with other territorial units. Except in estricted areas, it cannot pretend to be the exclusive holder or exerciser of power and authority. Even where in formal terms the political centers authority may be exclusive and where policies are expected to be uniformly administered throughout the systems territories and subunits, considerable local variation must be permitted. Unitary systems, by contrast, permit much less flexibility of this type. The central authority within such systems exercises nearly exclusive authority to make system-wide policies, and it is also expected that these policies will be uniformly administered everywhere.Any deviation from centrally established policies, indeed any policy-making within subnational units, proceeds only with some sort of authorization by the center. As often said in France, if one wishes to know exactly what children might be doing at a certain hour of any school day, it is sufficient to consult the manual of arms issued by the appropriate ministry in Paris. The unitary form is highly analogous to the world-wide business firm, including firms organized by product group or division, in which authority and control are concentrated in a single, central organization.The preceding, post-war development of the multinational corporation, at least in the United States, proceeded for the most part on the basis of this type. It was approximation that the revolutions in j et travel and electronics made such centralized control both desirable and feasible. That is, these changes in the speed and eagerness of travel and communication were said to make possible the global extension of the so-called Sloan model of the corporation, a model that had worked so well within the United States.Feedback and Learning No matter whether the basic structure is pluralistic or monocratic, federal or unitary, the need for feedback from which the center can presumably learn is universal. Federal systems, because they produce many streams of information, may be more open but less efficient than unitary systems. Unitary systems, although in theory narrower and easier to control than federal systems are in terms of information-producing channels, are at high risk of having information delayed, distorted, or misdirected.It is apparent, however, that the center often deludes itself into believing that, with a highly develop and centralized organizational weapon at its disp osal (like the commie party under Stalin in the USSR or the Chinese communistic party under Mao), it can both learn and control what transpires at the outer boundary (Hough 1969). The fallacious assumption in this instance is that a centralized and highly condition organizational instrument, such as the Communist party, can prevail irrespective of whether the overall system is of the federal or unitary configuration.Pluralism and Federalism in the Firm? A pluralist and federal model of the polity ill fits the in the main held image of the firm and of other private-sector organizations. Decision-making of the kind represented by the typical firm can scarcely follow a pluralist model to the letter, at least not without a rethinking of a great many well-established notions of what a world-scale company should be and how it should be run. Within the firm great violence is placed on clear lines of authority, both horizontal and vertical.The global firm still tries to instill a single corporate culture so that the hierarchy of values, the in operation(p) norms, and the modus operandi will be essentially the same wherever its branches and units may be located. This model leaves little room for pluralist inputs and local diversity. Pluralist democracies and federal systems thrive (most of the time) on their multicultural dimensions. sort of than eliminate diversity, it is honored and encouraged. In the corporate world, much of what is claimed about decentralization, planning from the bottom up, and individual empowerment often is spurious.Senior managers in the corporate world are rarely able or inclined to practice the decentralization or the broad and deep participation that they may preach. much often than not they use the considerable powers at their disposal not to encourage debate that leads to respond but rather to mobilize consent itself (Hardy and Clegg 1996 626). In the public/political sector, a constitute test of how seriously the center wishes to encourage diversity and favor empowerment lies in the practice of devolution, as opposed to decentralization.Devolution, typically practiced on a territorial basis, substantially reduces the powers of the center over the periphery, sometimes drastically. The strongest indicator of this reduction is the empowerment of the periphery not only to make policies but also to tax or otherwise raise capital in link with these policies. Such transfers, in turn, encourage high levels of competition between the subnational units of federal systems, sometimes creating very difficult problems at the center.Devolution increases pluralism. When hierarchy is replaced by something composed of rather free-acting units, managers need to develop skills that are germane to these changed circumstances. It is one thing when a persons position makes it possible to mobilize consent and conforming behavior it is quite another story when both of these things must be generated within the context of a relativ ely open, participatory, and fluid system of reaching consensus on what should be done and how best to do it.It is possible that the globalization of enterprise will force an increase in genuinely federal arrangements on the firm, a recess that would certainly imply moving away from a strict unitary, hierarchical model and award one that is genuinely more participatory, even if more difficult to manage. Charles Handy (1996) stated that such a change may be taking place (pp. 3356), although even he suggested that the exercise of federal principles to the corporate world will, perhaps inevitably, be imperfect (pp. 10912).The creation of similar federal structures, even ones remaining extreme from devolution, requires a new look at many of the most canonical ideas about how best to organize and manage the profit-seeking enterprise. On close inspection, the sometimes spectacular furlough and other changes in corporate structures since about 1990 do not appear to have brought about r adical operational changes in hierarchical structure. In both the public and the private sectors, centralized control of organizations dies hard.Nevertheless, the federal thrust in many of todays global firms should not be underestimated. In the truly global firm, where multinationality is not just a label, traditional arrangements for strategic plans, corporate finance, and capital budgetingwhich are still basically monocratic and unitary in naturewill gradually be revised. It is guide to think, as so many corporate managers still do, that the continuing electronic and information technology revolutions will permit efficient global control from a single, geographically dis