Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Bureaucratic Model

The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

 How does social order come about? This model seeks to explain the means through which social order is achieved.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

 Organizations are containers for people with vectors affecting them and with behaviors coming out…black boxes. There are no ‘people’ only roles.

A ROLE is a pattern of stabilized behavioral expectations.

ROLE SENDERS are individuals who set expectations.

A ROLE SET is the group of individuals who ‘send’ expectations to org. actors.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

people are utilitarian—their ontology=drives>sentiments>desires to be gratified

organizations have a normative aspect in mediating between drives and the environment

there is objective reality—humans come to terms w/reality thru approximations

the observer is ‘outside’ the experiment

language is possible—language can carry standard meaning actually connected with reality.

Equilibrium is desirable, even necessary for the organization’s survival.

 The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

The are four functional requisites of equal priority, importance and urgency: Goal attainment (politics); Allocation of resources (economics); Integration (coordination); and Latency (recruitment of role-players).

Strain is caused by stress on or priority given to goal attainment

Adjustment is needed to bring the requisites back into balance.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

Look at the role system: role conflict must be eliminated and congruence encouraged. The incentive system must meet not only the person’s desires but their role set’s, too. Negotiating a role is a big part of this.

Focus on the goal requisite: role players must accept a sense of mission—redefine goals and objectives.

Allocations—restructuring pay, personnel policies, etc.

Examine the demographics of the role players—input and socialize into their roles

Training—if you don’t restructure the organization you train the role players.

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Bounded Rationality

 The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

How is rational action possible given that the world is as complex as it is? Situations arise in organizations that have nothing to do with structure or people.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

The decision premise. Organization is a flow of premises that feed into decision formulas that then lead to action—past the role, past the person, to inside the brain

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

Two independent variables: contracts with employees re: inducements; and flow of informationIt is impossible for individuals to be fully rational (economic man) an organization and its processes to reduce complexity through satisficing—reduce complexity by ignoring much of the environment—focus on only those variables that bear directly on the specific situation.

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

People submit to authority contractually when they agree to the range of inducements offered. The core logic is distinctively impersonal (you really don’t need people)—you send human beings into the service of the system. You needn’t worry about ends—values are not amenable to rational choice. You don’t ask who or what the system is FOR.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

How you structure or manage the amount, variety, and timing of the information flow. Setting the contract limitations.

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Ecological

The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

The rational model, in principle, is ultimately unable to produce rational outcomes. Eventually, there are contradictions/conflicts in purpose due to the ‘human-ness’ of organizational members and compartmentalization of information.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

Relationships between people—the ‘web’ of connections

These relationships are not based in a common identity/value set, but in a common concern for task.

The important information is information about performance issues and documentation about process.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

Human persons (not roles) are motivated by the self-fulfilling dimensions of work.

The organization and its environment (internal and external aspects) are dynamic and constantly changing.

Variation is a fact of life—one can never control variation, but can only monitor and respond to it.

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

 What one theorist describes as the Zen law of reverse effects—one does by not doing—letting go of the notion that you can control. By submitting to process, you create the ground from which connections develop. A situationalist notion of that resembles American pragmatism (in a public organization context, one that corresponds to the anti-federalists’ constitutional and social arguments)—one based on acting, responding, then acting, and responding—finding approximate behavior and bases for collective action.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

Play for the long run, not the short term.

Start a true TQM program a la Deming.

Create a cultural change that implicitly brings all parts of the organization into alignment.

Remove structural barriers. Get rid of quotas, evaluations, artifacts of cultural pressure.

Evoke members’ best performance by getting people effectively connected to each other and the group.

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Motivational

 The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

Some people seem to be driven by something inside of them that overrides the social role vectors that act on them in the more bureaucratic or structural models. People are people and not just roles.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

Points our attention toward what people want—their "needs and greeds"—the inner drive that is motivation.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

people are driven by drives that they want to reduce or gratify

self-interest, or the psychology of the market—quid pro quo

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

Managers can manipulate behavior of organizational members in order to meet organizational goals by coming to understand what motivates individuals and then using carrots and sticks.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

observe, test, and uncover the pattern of motivation appropriate to each and use this in hiring, discipline, firing. Point of leverage for change is ability to choose appropriate system of rewards and punishments.

There are four principal patterns:

• traditional: specific performance objectives; reward with objective feedback; don’t need much punishment as this disrupts the system
• negotiator: rewards and punishments subject to negotiation
• catalyst: rewards: "stoking"; punishment: shame—"you’re causing trouble for other people on the team."
• Architect: rewards: praise of the individual’s intellectual contribution and creativity; punishment: "you didn’t think of something we needed to have."

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Personal Action

The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

The organization’s situation can become so "unstuck" and "destabilizing" that there appears to be simply nothing to do. Negotiation with the environment just does not work to produce any stability, let alone equilibrium. One ends up asking, "How can/does the public administrator put him or herself into an appropriate role in this postmodern age?"

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

The importance of accepting responsibility, of making decisions and following through, without the stability associated with fundamental or universal norms or truths. The spotlight then is upon the human actor and human agency in the face of uncertainty, and the "currency" in postmodern times is story and performance.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

• there is no foundational, objective reality

• we construct our own social realities by ascribing meaning to events and actions, therefore, "reality" is a shifting phenomenon subject to change and uncertainty.

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

The troubling ambiguity characteristic of the postmodern age is simply the way the world is (that we have masked in our other models). If humans "create" reality, then they can develop and show the courage and willingness to encounter an unknown and unknowable world in order to do the best job possible with the information and perspectives that they have.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

• Small steps toward "renewal" rather than elaborate plans

• Reflection in order to find an inner sense of self

• Flexibility in organizational structure (like intersect organizations) and encouragement of organizational members to reflect and engage in personal transformation

• Organizations have unclear boundaries, but must have clear missions—leaders must live and communicate mission.
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  Postmodern Roles

    

  9.1 Professional: (high emphasis on market; low emphasis on the person)

  Get your act together and 'sell' it in your own niche.

  1.1    1.1 Self-limiting: (low emphasis on both market and person)
  Define yourself in one little way and do what you do without

  1.2    caring about either the market or a personal life

  1.9 Existential: (low emphasis on market, high emphasis on the person)
  Be the ‘tough cop’ assume personal rules, make

  your own meaning

  9.9 Transformational: (high emphasis on both person and market)
  Accepting the reality of the market and putting yourself

  so far into it that what comes out of role performance is more than you put into it

  5.5 Ambivalent: (middling emphasis on both)
  Sort of "do your job"—meet halfway, but mirror

  accommodation in both spheres—neither sphere has authenticity.

  **sorry gang, I couldn't get the wonderful drawing to transfer into
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Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Political

The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

The environment does not send clear messages about what your organization needs to do. You have to negotiate with the environment to accomplish organizational goals.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

Adaptation is from the point of view of you (the leader) protecting your agency.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

It is assumed that the public administrator (you) has a perspective that is in the public interest.

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

Resource exchange and managing the emotional process that is the essence of politics.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

• assess the extent to which your environment is turbulent

• analyze: is the environment made up of informal or formal systems? Is it characterized by equilibrium or disequilibrium? (If the latter, what are its need/demands?

• How concrete is the agency’s ‘product’? To what degree is my agency’s product formally or informally legitimate? Implicitly or explicitly rejected?

• How liquid is the medium of exchange?

• Manage the media image of the agency!!!

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Action Theory

 The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

 The breakdown of structure and authority of the bureaucratic model—a model that puts too much trust in language having standard meanings. Socialization, based on shared normative premises, is not straightforward, Words simply refer to other words, not to an external reality. Because of this, social order is fragile.

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

 A process of improvisation. We see the person in this model, not the role, but not as we experience ourselves to be (that is, rational), but as behaving randomly and improvisationally finding appropriate behavior. We can only make sense of our actions retrospectively.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

 There is no external reality. Language does not have standard meanings. In generating appropriate enactments, we use a grammar (a set of generic rules). One central moral imperative that holds the social order together: not to expose that we’re all faking it. Our ethical burden is to maintain and help others maintain the charade.

 The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

 One can accrete meanings over time by building up methods of living together. We develop common meanings through ways of living together, providing enough congruence to give our words substance.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

The control and manipulation of artifacts, symbols and rituals. Patterned contact between people leads to rituals

Conceptual Analysis Form for

Management Models: Transformational

The conceptual problem that this model takes as its starting place is…

Understanding what appears to be non-rational individual behavior. When the person’s behavior is not outwardly (as in role or culture) affected and does not seem to fit the motivational model, we ask, "Where on his/her life path is the individual?"

The focus or emphasis of perspective of this model (i.e., what one sees when one looks at the world through it) is…

The unconscious dimension of the human personality and the cycles that lead to transformation. The life-long patterns of the individual’s development.

The axiomatic assumptions or things taken for granted by this model are…

People are not motivated by satisfaction, but rather by the search for meaning—the coherence of self that results from the unconscious side of the psyche in its superordinate position over the conscious side. Synchronicity is the events that happen as cues to transformational opportunities. You "follow your passion" toward that which is meaningful to you.

The core logic of the mode of explanation offered by this model is…

 From a psychological standpoint, it is the resolution of projection and the recovery of energy from projections. Make yourself or the situation whole by bringing back this energy.

The main strategic variables, or places where leverage for managerial action can be gained, that are indicated by this model are…

Setting up and carrying out an appropriate confrontation session—use managerial authority to bring the individual to confront him or herself.