Coordination Without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational SystemsUniversity of California Press, 1992 M09 29 - 292 pages 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 Hierarchy is 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 Hierarchy received 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. |
Contents
Multiorganizational Systems | 1 |
Formal Failures and Informal | 20 |
Failures in the Process of Coordination | 28 |
The Multiorganizational Setting | 35 |
Informal Coordinative Mechanisms | 64 |
The Fruits of Informal Coordination | 93 |
Factors Facilitating Informal | 112 |
Informal Weaknesses and Formal | 137 |
Conclusion | 159 |
Conclusion | 188 |
Problems Expectations and Satisfactory | 197 |
An Afterword | 203 |
MTC as Coordinator and Regional | 211 |
Notes | 225 |
Bibliography | 245 |
265 | |
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Common terms and phrases
AC transit AC-BART actors agreement Area Public Transit Area transit system arrangements BART and AC BART stations BART's Bay Area Interview Bay Area Public Bay Area transit behavior Berkeley bilateral busbridge buses Caltrain central Chisholm Bay Area Contra Costa County coordination solutions County Transit Daly City station decision director Donald Chisholm effective existing failures fares formal channels formal organization formal structure function goals Golden Gate Harold Seidman Ibid important individual informal channels informal contacts informal mechanisms informal organization informal relationships informal system interorganizational involved jurisdiction manager Martin Landau ment Metro multilateral interdependence multiorganizational system Muni Muni Metro norm of reciprocity orga organizational system overlap passengers personnel planner planning political problems of coordination rail Redundancy regional result role Samtrans Santa Clara scheduling staff subset Thompson tion Transbay Terminal transbay tube transfers transit agencies transit operators Transportation UMTA Washington Metro York zations