Coordination Without Hierarchy

by Chisholm, Donald William

• ISBN13: 9780520080379
• ISBN10: 0520080378
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

The organizational history of American government during the past 100 years has been written principally in terms of the creation of larger and larger public organizations. Beginning with the Progressive movement, no matter the goal, the reflexive response has been to consolidate and centralize into formal hierarchies. That efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability, and the coordination necessary to achieve them, are promoted by such reorganizations has become widely accepted. Borrowing from social psychology, sociology, political science, and public administration, and using the public transit system of the San Francisco Bay area for illustrative purposes, Donald Chisholm directly challenges this received wisdom. He argues that, contrary to contemporary canons of public administration, we should actively resist the temptation to consolidate and centralize our public organizations. Rather, we should carefully match organizational design with observed types and levels of interdependence, since organizational systems that on the surface appear to be tightly linked webs of interdependence on closer examination often prove decomposable into relatively simpler subsystems that may be coordinated through decentralized, informal organizational arrangements. Chisholm finds that informal channels between actors at different organizations prove remarkably effective and durable as instruments of coordination. Developed and maintained as needed rather than according to a single preconceived design, informal channels, along with informal conventions and contracts, tend to match interorganization interdependence closely and to facilitate coordination. Relying on such measures reduces the cognitive demands and obviates the necessity for broadscale political agreement typical of coordination by centralized, formal organizations. They also advance other important values that are frequently absent in formally consolidated organizations, such as reliability, flexibility, and the representation of varied interests. Coordination Without Hierarchyis an incisive, penetrating work whose conclusions apply to a wide range of public organizations at all levels of government. It will be of interest to a broad array of social scientists and policymakers. In an earlier version,Coordination Without Hierarchyreceived the American Political Science Association 1985 Leonard D. White Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public administration, including broadly related problems of policy formation and administrative theory.

Author Biography

Donald Chisholm is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures, and Maps	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Multiorganizational Systems	p. 1
Reorganization and Coordination	p. 6
Decomposability and Organizational Structure	p. 9
Informal Organization and Loosely Coupled Systems	p. 11
Theoretical Perspectives on Organization	p. 14
Formal Failures and Informal Compensations	p. 20
The Informal Organization: Planned or Spontaneous?	p. 24
Failures in the Process of Coordination	p. 28
The Multiorganizational Setting	p. 35
The Problem of Interdependence	p. 40
Basic Premises	p. 41
Operations, Services, and Planning in Bay Area Public Transit	p. 44
Bilateral and Multilateral Interdependence	p. 52
Origins of Bilateral and Multilateral Interdependence	p. 58
Conclusion	p. 63
Informal Coordinative Mechanisms	p. 64
Formal Failures and Informal Channels	p. 65
Informal Channels and Informal Networks	p. 69
Informal Network and Subsets	p. 78
Informal Conventions and Norms	p. 85
Cosmopolitanism and Coordination	p. 89
The Fruits of Informal Coordination	p. 93
The Grant Application Process and the Busbridge Agreement	p. 94
The Transbay Tube Fire and Its Aftermath	p. 99
Coordination in Operations and Services	p. 104
Factors Facilitating Informal Organization	p. 112
The Norm of Reciprocity	p. 114
System Properties	p. 120
Organizational Properties	p. 126
Personal Attributes	p. 132
Other Factors: Serendipitous Propinquity	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 136
Informal Weaknesses and Formal Compensations	p. 137
The Personal Nature of Informal Organization	p. 138
Enforceability, Time, and Accountability	p. 142
Interdependence and the Multiorganizational System	p. 146
A Hybrid System of Coordination: The Role of the RTA	p. 150
A Hybrid System of Coordination: The Role of MTC	p. 154
Conclusion	p. 159
Coordination and Tradeoffs with Other Goals	p. 160
Differences in Operating Environment	p. 162
Consistency, Goal Displacement, and Institutionalization	p. 169
Representation	p. 173
Reliability	p. 182
Conclusion	p. 186
Conclusion	p. 188
Unnecessary Surgery	p. 188
Limits to Informal Coordination	p. 192
Problems, Expectations, and Satisfactory Coordination	p. 197
An Afterword	p. 203
Changes	p. 204
Coordination Activities	p. 206
MTC as Coordinator and Regional Representative	p. 211
A Final Note	p. 213
Appendices	p. 215
Notes	p. 225
Bibliography	p. 245
Index	p. 265
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