Public Organization and the Problem of Change

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Public Organization and the Problem of Change
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• This analysis argues that fundamental change in
  most organizations most of the time is not
  possible.
• This means that popular words like restructuring
  and reform are empty, signifying much ado about
  nothing.
• The analysis applies to all public organization
  schools, colleges and welfare agencies. But in
  all likelihood, it is equally applicable to
  private sector organizations as well.

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Schools are organized in the form of two species
of bureaucracy

• the machine bureaucracy
• the professional bureaucracy
• The difference between the two is in the type of
  work they do and the mechanisms available to
  control or coordinate the work

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• Machine bureaucracies do simple work- - work that
  can be
• rationalized or broken down into a series of
  precise, routine tasks
• that can be fully determined in advance of their
  execution.

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• Coordination of simple work is accomplished by
  building it into the work through the
  standardization of work processes.
• Control of work and workers is achieved primarily
  through formalization
• job specifications,
• detailed instructions and
• rules and regulations.

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• Professional bureaucracies do complex work - -
  work that cannot be rationalized.
• Complex work requires the application of general
  principles to particular cases and thus involves
  uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Complex work cannot be specified in advance
  completely.
• Organizations configure themselves as
  professional bureaucracies when the work is too
  complex to be rationalized and too uncertain to
  be formalized.

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• Complex work requires that coordination be built
  into the worker through the standardization of
  skills which is accomplished through
  professionalization
• training
• indoctrination in professional schools
• Simple work is coordinated through formalization.
• Complex work is coordinated through
  professionalization

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• The type of coordination used determines the
  nature of interdependency among workers.
• The nature of interdependency in turn influences
  the nature of change in organizations

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• Teachers and other client-oriented professionals
  work autonomously with their clients and only
  loosely with their peers
• which shapes the nature of relationships.
• Interdependence among teachers is an example of
  "pooled" or loose" coupling.
• they share common facilities and resources but
  work alone with their clients.
• In a machine bureaucracy, coupling is sequential
  where each worker (like links in a chain) is
  highly dependent on other workers.

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• Schools as public organizations get their
  legitimacy from the public ...
• their survival depends on what the public wants
  them to be, which is an organization that
  conforms to the image of the machine bureaucracy.
• Schools are forced to adopt all the trappings of
  the machine bureaucracy even though these do not
  fit the technical requirements of doing complex
  work in a professional environment.
• Schools are managed with the wrong model in mind.

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• By design the machine bureaucracy seals off its
  operations by placing a barrier between the
  worker and client
• - - i.e., through formalization.
• The professional bureaucracy removes this barrier
  to permit a personal relationship.

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• Decoupling is a safety valve that permits schools
  to get out from under formalization.
• The formal structure that schools are forced to
  adopt is disconnected from or has little to do
  with the work that is actually done.
• The machine bureaucracy of schools is a facade
  that is created and maintained through symbols
  and ceremonies for internal comfort and public
  consumption.
• The great irony is, the participants dont even
  know it.

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Incompatibility of the typologies

• The two structures are incompatible because
  formalization and professionalization use
  incompatible control mechanisms.
• The two forms coexist by decoupling and buffering
  their work from one another.

Standardization built into the work versus Standar
dization built into the worker
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Similarities

• Both are bureaucracies because they use
  standardization to produce standard products or
  services.
• Because they use standardization they require
  stable environments.
• Both are performance organizations
• they design themselves to do one thing well
  under stable conditions.

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• This means that the machine bureaucracy and the
  professional bureaucracy are non-adaptable
  structures in two respects.
• Type 1 non-adaptability is related to
• standardization as a coordination mechanism.
• Teachers come equipped with a repertoire of
  standard programs that are applied to
  predetermined contingencies (categorization of
  student needs or goals and application of the
  program - pigeonholing).
• This makes it possible to move through work
  without making continuous decisions every moment.

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• Students whose goals or needs fall at the margin
  or in the cracks between standard programs tend
  to get forced artificially into one category or
  another or pushed out of the system altogether.
• Under these circumstances, the system screens out
  heterogeneity and uncertainty by trying to fit
  deviance into a standard program.
• Needing help is not enough the help needed must
  be of the kind the professional bureaucracy has
  been standardized to provide.
• The professional confuses the needs of the client
  with the skills he has to offer.

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• Type 2 non-adaptability also comes from
  standardization.
• As long as the environment is stable, the
  standardized program is sufficient or roughly
  acceptable.
• When environments become dynamic
• that is, when expectations are that something
  other than the standardized program be run
• - organizations are potentially devastated.

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• Stability and dynamism impose two kinds of
  change Fundamental change and incidental change.
• A fundamental change requires that schools change
  the basic operations for which they have been
  standardized. Incidental change does not require
  a fundamental change.

Fundamental change requires that teachers do
something different. Incidental change requires
that schools do something additional.
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As professional bureaucracies, schools cannot
change fundamentally, only incidentally.
Schools are well suited for incidental change
because they are performance organizations, not
problem solving organizations.
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• Because schools are required to change but cannot
  change, they do the only thing they can do they
  create the illusion that they have changed while
  remaining the same.
• Schools relieve pressure by signaling the
  environment that change has occurred, thus
  maintaining legitimacy and public support.
• This is possible because the signals of change
  are built into the machine structure which is
  decoupled from the actual work where change was
  meant to be focused.

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End