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Maintenance, an important concept in the organizational literature, is often assumed to be a key factor in the low levels of sensitivity to client needs and demands apparent in many human service organizations. This paper uses data from a national sample of juvenile courts to demonstrate, however, that maintenance may relate to other variables in ways that are at variance with the common assumption. The maintenance of internal organizational operations is bound closely to the development of ties to the community; as a result, strong emphasis on maintenance actually leads to high levels of sensitivity to clients when certain environmental forces demand it. This positive relation is especially strong when organizations are highly vulnerable to external pressures. Such results suggest a contingent view of the role of maintenance in organizations and imply some further directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the field of sociology and the subfield of complex organization have experienced a series of running debates between persons subscribing to structural approaches and those holding to interaction perspectives of scientific inquiry. Drawing upon Spinner's (1973) discussion of the types of intertheory relationships, this paper extends his analysis by drawing attention to the Polanyi-Hanson-Kuhn position on the fundamental nature of theory-laden observation. A methodological rule is proposed, using theoretic blockage as the basis for alternate shifting between diverse theories. In this manner, tenets of various theoretic perspectives can serve as heuristics to a more informed analysis. A theoretical discussion of power, deference, and social coordination is used to illustrate how the methodological rule of theoretic blockage can be employed to advance organization theory. I argue that the theoretical diversities in the subfield of complex organization can provide an excellent arena for exploring critical intertheory dialogues which can advance our knowledge of organizations. At the same time they can serve as a testing ground for general intertheory and interdisciplinary linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports upon a secondary analysis of Richard Hall's (1968) data, indicating that two major trends—the increasing professionalization of the labor force and the increasing bureaucratization of organizations—are not necessarily incompatible. Because the bureaucratic and professional models imply different forms of organization, most research has been directed toward isolating the sources of conflict; the major emphasis being upon the incompatibility of professional and bureaucratic control. Using Thompson's (1967) classification of technology, the present research has focused upon two dimensions of professionalism (self-regulation, and autonomy) and three dimensions of bureaucracy (rules, procedures, and technical competence). The results suggest that the relationships between these dimensions vary by organizational technology and the nature of the professional tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique data set collected in France among biotech entrepreneurs and their venture capital investors (VCs), we measure the added value of personal relationships at the interorganizational level. Our analyses show that when two entrepreneurs share a personal collaboration tie or a personal friendship tie with a VC investor, the probability of having an advice tie and thus exchange tacit knowledge increases significantly. We confirm the importance of this kind of social embeddedness in the biotech industry where personalized ties--as opposed to institutional and contractual relationships--at the interorganizational level had not yet been examined systematically. Our results suggest that strategies of personalization of exchanges are vital for interorganizational learning. These strategies help entrepreneurs to access resources, participate in knowledge building, and co-orientate activities in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do institutional entrepreneurs craft new organizational forms under unstable conditions, especially when all of the relevant organizational models have serious liabilities in terms of legitimacy? Previous literature argues that emergent organizational models must adopt existing organizational elements in order to solve three problems: (1) gaining access to resources, (2) exploiting previous competencies, and (3) demonstrating legitimacy to salient audiences. Yet, these three distinct needs often require very different organizational elements associated with diverse, contradictory moral logics. This article, which examines the case of for-profit ventures started by Chinese state organizations in the 1990s, reveals one strategy that entrepreneurs can use to solve this problem—to deliberately increase ambiguity about the organization's central characteristics and its underlying moral logic. This strategy makes it possible for new organizations to solve the problems of resources, competency, and legitimacy by simultaneously adopting (and adapting) contradictory organizational elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research indicates that career mobility under Chinese Communist rule has been shaped by state political screening and shifts in official ideology. Drawing on Weber's concept of modern bureaucracy and a study of schoolteachers in the Mao era (1949-1976), this article suggests that within the workplace official control of careers engendered an inferior and heterogeneous corps of management personnel, a deep schism between management and the staff, and a fractured division of labor. The antitheses of the rational features of modern bureaucracy, these arrangements fostered workplace friction and political resentment that precipitated post-Mao reforms. Primary evidence comes from recently declassified government documents and firsthand interviews with retired teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the continuity of organizational and leader networks and community elite structure by replicating a study carried out 12 years earlier. Continuity of structure in the organizational bases of influence, in the leaders identified as influentials, and in the organizational and leader networks in the community is looked for. It is concluded that there is continuity in the bases and structure of influence and that the ability to exercise influence is related to access to organizational resources. A contrast of organization and leader networks suggests a shift from narrow organizational interests to business class interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on community structure as a network of interorganizational linkages, with an eye toward (1) generating new conceptual schemes to study the community as a social network and (2) developing a methodology to measure new dimensions of community structure. An analysis of structurally equivalent roles is performed in two communities for three organizational resource networks: money, information, and moral support. Global dependencies on resource generator, consumer, and transmitter roles for the money network are analyzed using loglinear models. Local dependencies within the money network are also examined. Finally, the study examines the perceived influence of organizations in community affairs as a function of the organizations' global positions within the community network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between three bureaucratic role-structure dimensions and affective responses in organizations. Contrary to much theory, it is hypothesized that formal structuring of activities has a positive effect on members' satisfaction and perceived climate; consistent with bureaucratic theory, it is hypothesized that both role constraints and rule enforcement have negative effects Results from a sample of 332 members of work organizations largely support this model. In addition, structural analysis techniques demonstrate no significant group level effects, suggesting that the influence of bureaucratic structure is mediated largely through individual roles. These results demonstrate contradictory, rather than consistent negative, effects of bureaucratic structure on members. Specifically, members react favorably to well-delineated rules, though they dislike the restricted autonomy and personal enforcement that generally accompany them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major criticisms of the dominant comparative structural and structural contingency approaches to organizations were examined and found to possess at least ten major limitations. These structural approaches have resulted in an emphasis on organizational efficiency, goals, consensus, statics, and constraints of the environment, size, and technology which perpetuate the status quo; but the analysis of power, change, conflicts of interest, and individual volition have been obscured. Although structural analysis has resulted in some limited abstract generalizations concerning the form of organizations, these generalizations do little to contribute to understanding organizational processes, strategic choice, and power relationships. These important aspects of organizations could be unmasked by viewing organizations as arenas of micro-individual and group interests as well as arenas through which macrosocietal, class, and multinational interests and conflicts are played out. To minimize these limitations in the analysis of organizations, triangulations of perspectives, levels of analysis, sources of data, and methodologies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strauss' (1978) negotiation paradigm is used to analyze interorganizational relations leading to development of a complex of eleven rehabilitation agencies. Analysis is based on records over a twenty-five year period and four years of participant observation and interviewing. The structural context for the negotiations is described in terms of over-lapping societal, communal, interorganizational, organizational, and interpersonal levels. The analysis points out the importance of covert, informal negotiations to interorganizational relations. The negotiators who initiated the process employed a strategy of multiple-linked negotiations in which they attempted to select negotiators from the other organizations and the issues to be negotiated. Stakes were manipulated according to a cost-reward-involvement formula. Problematic issues were dealt with in informal covert negotiations which preceded overt negotiations in a peer type council. Consideration of the negotiation process aids in understanding several problems in interorganizational relations: power and autonomy and the consequences of interlocking directorates. The negotiated order approach suggests several lines of additional research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extension of the exchange model for the analysis of interorganizational relations is developed, incorporating into the model recent developments in exchange theory. Organizational interactions are viewed as networks of exchange relations, and various forms of interorganizational activity such as merger and coalition or alliance formation are analyzed in relation to power and position in the network. Linkages between various types of exchange networks and what economists refer to as market structures are examined. Finally, previous criticisms of exchange formulations are reviewed, and directions for future theoretical and empirical work concerning networks of interorganizational relationships are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Perrucci and Pilisuk community power study of a medium-sized midwestern U.S. city is replicated on a small Prairie Canadian resort town. The interorganizational basis for power, derived from overlapping executive memberships, is the perspective followed in both studies. Essentially the same results are found in both places. A well-defined elite structure exists capable of mobilizing interorganizational power resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]