This monumental study provides an innovative and powerful means for understanding institutions by applying problem solving theory to the creation and elaboration of formal organizational rules and procedures. Based on a meticulously researched historical analysis of the U.S. Navys officer personnel system from its beginnings to 1941, the book is informed by developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, operations research, and management science. It also offers important insights into the development of the American administrative state, highlighting broader societal conflicts over equity, efficiency, and economy. Considering the Navys personnel system as an institution, the book shows that changes in that system resulted from a long-term process of institutional design, in which formal rules and procedures are established and elaborated. Institutional design is here understood as a problem-solving process comprising day-to-day efforts of many decision makers to resolve the difficulties that block completion of their tasks. The officer personnel system is treated as a problem of organized complexity, with many components interacting in systematic, intricate ways, its structure usually imperfectly understood by the participants. Consequently, much problem solving entails decomposing the larger problem into smaller, more manageable components, closing open constraints, and balancing competing value premises. The author finds that decision makers are unlikely to generate many alternatives, since searching for existing solutions elsewhere or inventing new ones is an expensive, difficult enterprise. Choice is usually a matter of accepting, rejecting, or modifying a single solution. Because time constraints force decisions before problems are well structured, errors are frequently made, problem components are at best only partially addressed, and the chosen solution may not solve the problem at all and even if it does is likely to generate unanticipated side-effects that worsen other problem components. In its definitive treatment of a critical but hitherto entirely unresearched dimension of the administration of the U.S. Navy, the book provides full details over time concerning the elaboration of officer grades and titles, creation of promotion by selection, sea duty requirements, graded retirement, staff-line conflicts, the establishment of the Reserve, and such unusual subjects as tombstone promotions. In the process, it transcends the specifics of the personnel system to give a broad picture of the Navys history over the first century and a half of its development.
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.
Connected By Love N Life is a 2 in 1 book. This book of poetry is a combination of Thoughts, Stories & Quotes of situations we deal with in our everyday lives whether its relationships, Good, Bad or Indifferent, The single life, Hope, Faith, Trust and Friendship. It touches on every emotion known to mankind. The first part of the book has Poetry about every aspect in life for the first 112 pages capped off with a 7 page Love Story written in Poetic format. The second part of the book is what I call Inspirational Thoughts (Quotes), which are approximately 3 quotes per page covering 31 pages and does not lack in emotions as well. I hope you enjoy it as it has become therapy in a sense for myself.
This is a true story about a Black White-water Rafting Guide in the Northwest back in the 80's and 90's. It starts with a short that tells the tale of how he got his river handle name "THE REV" and how he got into whitewater rafting. This is the extended version 3 of Swift water adventures that includes the additional chapter "The Rambo Weekend." I have also included the link to a short Music Video that has a mix of gallery and video to show the wild and powerful energy that became so addictive. https: //vimeo.com/35784097
Connected By Love N Life is a 2 in 1 book. This book of poetry is a combination of Thoughts, Stories & Quotes of situations we deal with in our everyday lives whether it´s relationships, Good, Bad or Indifferent, The single life, Hope, Faith, Trust and Friendship. It touches on every emotion known to mankind. The first part of the book has Poetry about every aspect in life for the first 112 pages capped off with a 7 page Love Story written in Poetic format. The second part of the book is what I call Inspirational Thoughts (Quotes), which are approximately 3 quotes per page covering 31 pages and does not lack in emotions as well. I hope you enjoy it as it has become therapy in a sense for myself.
An examination of organizational behavior within the context of San Francisco Bay Area transit organizations and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
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