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The professional organization and the professional department within the larger organization are compared in terms of their organizational structures. The findings suggest that although professional departments and heteronomous professional organizations are found to be generally more bureaucratized than autonomous professional organizations, professional departments in particular are not inherently more bureaucratic. Thus the professional may not find himself necessarily in conflict with the larger organization. A higher level of bureaucratization was found among less professionalized groups, suggesting that in the absence of professional norms, organizational norms may maintain equilibrium. As a group becomes more professionalized, conflict may increase unless the level of bureaucratization is reduced. Professional departments were found to rely less on standards of technical competence in the selection and advancement of personnel, providing a possible source of conflict for the professional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interviews with top-level Vietnamese civil servants revealed a pattern of disillusionment with the mandarinic philosophy permeating much of Vietnam's public administration system. Perceptions of respondents also showed their acceptance of administrative centralization of a large public sector as vital in developmental administration. However, they perceived the extreme fusion of decision-making authority in the hands of a particularistic, ascriptive ruling family as leading to considerable irrationality in administrative behavior. At the same time as a result of pressures, particularly exogenous ones favoring bureaucratization, certain outward manifestations of rationalizing the administrative system have been effected. The result was seen to be an instance of considerable formalism in which there is wide variance between formal structure and operating structure. This essay was completed prior to the November coup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classification of administrative decisions as routine, adaptive, and innovative provides the framework for identification of the multiple roles played by city managers. Actual discretion accorded managers by their city councils or by the charter is rated for each category within the adaptive and innovative decision classes in ten cities studied. Such rating of discretion provides more precise descriptions of role behavior than the more customary general description of tasks. The political context for the various ranges of role behavior is then examined for style of politics and institutional-structural factors. Political style may be monopolistic or competitive; institutional-structural factors include popular election of the mayor as opposed to council choice of the mayor, independence of any departments of government from manager control, and ward election of councilmen as opposed to election at large. A positive relationship was found between limitations in range of discretion accorded city managers and popular election of the mayor in all cities with this electoral feature. Restrictions of managers' roles were attributed to conflicting role expectations of the managers and the elected mayors. This finding is in accord with the common-sense opposition of proponents of council-manager government to popular election of the mayor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of work behavior have been primarily processual as opposed to factorial. There has been a great concentration on the one-case study and little systematic attempt to relate behavior to contextual and organizational settings. A survey of the literature on bureaucracy leads to an analysis of organizational structure in terms of a set of variables (specialization, standardization, formalization, centralization, configuration, and flexibility) that are capable of empirical verification. Comparative studies will establish organizational "profiles" along these variables and relate them to contextual variables such as size, ownership and control, charter, and technology. The profiles will also allow comparative studies of individual and group behavior to be undertaken in clear relation to organizational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Max Weber's broad-gauge theory of the development of administration, although largely neglected by social scientists, is still useful. By confronting Weber's theory with recent empirical work, this article attempts to evaluate its present scientific status. Weber's failure to forecast correctly the current decline of bureaucracy in American society is only one of the shortcomings of his theory. But it achieves much, raises many researchable problems, and deserves reclaiming and refining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars engaged in the study of community power have debated the merits of the so-called "reputational" and "pluralist" methods of inquiry at length. This paper suggests that differences in substantive results can be understood in terms of the assumptions made by each method concerning what is being studied, and, therefore, in terms of the investigative techniques that are appropriate. The "reputational" school, based principally on sociology, views the community as a system of action and examines the structure of political roles involved in setting community policies. The "pluralist" school, based principally on political science, views the community as a collection of individuals and attempts to measure in quantitative terms the amount of power held by each individual. Both systems of thought are examined, and questions are raised with regard to the adequacy of the currently popular "pluralist" method. Finally, some problems common to both methods are noted, and suggestions for further research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article refers to the social arrangement of bureaucracy and focuses on organizational revitalization, which is a collaborative process between managers and scientists or academicians to improve performance by examining organizational behavior. The future social structure of organizations will be temporary, interdisciplinary research teams or task forces created to solve specific problems. However, there could be conflict between professional values and organizational goals. The "academic man" is mentioned, as well as the concepts of man, power, and organizational values that influence management philosophy, environmental factors of interdependence, turbulence, and large-scale enterprises, and a prediction that an organic-adaptive system will replace bureaucracy.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of organization levels upon organization performance. The methodology involved the establishment of experimental organizations of four, three, and two levels, and these were evaluated in terms of profitability, communication speed and accuracy, and individual member attitudes. The results of the experiment provide support for the hypothesis that the number of levels in an organization will affect organization performance. It provided limited support for the hypothesis that the fewer the number of levels the better the performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an example on how semantic analysis can be applied to the study of social structure. A large sample of usage is used to examine the norms of address in American English. The semantic rules that govern address are worked out from various collection of data including usage in American Plays, actual usage in a Boston business firm, and reported usage of business executives. Most common address forms are the first name and the title plus last name. The semantic distinction between these patterns is on the intimacy dimension with Mutual first name as the more intimate of the two patterns.