on decentralized authority, the empowering effects of participative management will prevail. When seeking to manage external competition while applying mar- ket-based techniques, material incentives, flexible work schedules, and temporary workers will be utilized to increase performance and reduce costs. And when seek- ing to be accountable to the demanding needs of a pluralistic community through collective responsibility, citizen governance will reign. Thus, advocates of the com- munitarian approach to public reform support a self-organizing ideology to trans- form the very nature of organizational life in efforts to satisfy the dual, and often conflicting, democratic needs of social order and individual autonomy.
Further insight into understanding the role of culture in reforming public administration is offered in the following section, which explores the relevant thinking in organizational theory and approaches to organizational change. These schools of thought and models of change are then aligned with each of the para- digms of organizational culture and administrative reform as discussed above.
alternatives for solving the problem, (4) establish criteria for evaluating alternative solutions, (5) evaluate alternatives for strengths and weaknesses, and (6) select the alternative that will maximize outcomes.54
Advocates of the rational model seek to direct and control the nature of change.
To that end, they tend to favor centralized decision making to establish clear goals and objectives. Valuing outcomes over process, rationalists focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of decisions and assert that public institutions should control and correct the deficiencies in society and determine, rather than react to, their environ- ments.55 With an internal focus that emphasizes stability, predictability, efficiency, and control while simultaneously minimizing risk, the rational approach to change is closely aligned with traditional bureaucracy and the Hierarchy culture.
4.2 Cognitive Theories and the Pragmatic Approach
Cognitive theorists view organizations as systems of knowledge or beliefs through which organization members develop shared subjective meanings. These shared meanings inform employee notions of organizational reality and facilitate func- tional order by providing a framework for cooperative action and conflict, both consistent with the self-image held and shared within the organization. To the extent organization members view themselves as a cultural collective, behaviors and language may appear rule-bound.56 The human relations school of organi- zational theory similarly acknowledges the importance of shared meanings while seeking organizational flexibility through a humanistic managerial approach.57 As such, human relations theories may be considered a subset of cognitive theory. The Clan culture, with its emphasis on understanding relations between organizational members’ worldviews and social action, is rooted in the cognitive frame of organi- zational theory.
While acknowledging the value of cognition and rationality, the pragmatic approach to organizational change also recognizes the existence of and seeks to compensate for noncognitive political and organizational constraints in decision making.58 The pragmatic approach thus gains from the benefits of employing incrementalism while not being constrained by pure rationality. Pragmatism also recognizes the significance of perceptions and communications within the organiza- tion.59 Realizing that implementation depends on internal acceptance of decisions, advocates of the pragmatic model emphasize teamwork, employee empowerment, a cooperative and supportive environment, and structural flexibility to accommodate employee needs and promote employee welfare. The pragmatic approach to change is, therefore, closely aligned with the reform strategy of participative management and the Clan culture.
Decentralizing administrative structures is relatively easy. Decentralizing authority is not. For example, with the majority of its member nations apparently against creating a unifying European Union Constitution for fear of a reduction
in national sovereignty, and the power and control inherent to it, the European Commission recently ended a seven-year effort to gain support for such a unifying document and instead agreed to a less comprehensive intergovernmental treaty.60 In addition, a recent survey of local government officials in the small Eastern Euro- pean country of Moldova found that, at least with respect to interacting with inter- national donor organizations, the overwhelming majority of respondents wanted a significantly greater degree of autonomy and less restrictive policies and procedures mandated by the central government in that country.61 And it is no less difficult for some public (and nonprofit) managers to delegate authority to subordinates in the organizational setting. For example, findings of a recent study in the United States of perceptions of professional and supervisory personnel in local government and in the nonprofit sector reported that the amount and nature of perceived responsibil- ity and authority afforded the sample employees within the scope of their assigned duties were significantly different and less favorable than they desired. It is notewor- thy, however, that government employees reported a slightly more favorable percep- tion of their responsibility and authority than their nonprofit counterparts.62
4.3 Contingency Theories and the Process Approach
Contingency theories of organization reject a purely classical and a purely cogni- tive approach to organization design and management. Instead, this theoretical frame attempts to understand relationships within and among organizational sub- systems and between the organization and its external environment. The organiza- tion’s environment, technology, and sociotechnical systems are considered variables directly related to behavioral consequences. Contingency theorists reject the notion of a static or universal approach to organization design and management. Rather, different designs are viewed as appropriate for various organizational environments, subsystems, people, technologies, and missions.63
The process model of change emphasizes the need to accommodate democratic participation while seeking to minimize the costs and risks associated with respond- ing to competing and often conflicting external demands. Insofar as the process approach assumes that social values are too complex to facilitate purely rational choices and that stability depends on continuous participation and compromise among competing interests, it is aligned with the view of contingency theorists.
In contrast to the rational and pragmatic models of change, analysis has a small but important role in the incremental approach of the process model. Analysis, or knowledge, serves in this model of change only as a device to improve the capacity of citizens to impose demands on public organizations. To the extent organizational decisions flow from the top to the bottom, the process model of change assumes that public institutions are hierarchically structured. However, because the lower echelons of the organization collect information from the external environment and transmit that information to the top of the organization, the process model also
assumes a decentralized structure.64 It is this combination of structural attributes that allows for innovation with incrementalism and pluralism with accountability.
Emphasizing accountability while accommodating the pluralistic nature of stakeholder demands, an incremental approach to market-based innovations is well suited to the process model of change. Organizational stability can be achieved by controlling external competition in the delivery of public goods and services. Simi- larly, efficacy can be realized when measurable organizational goals are established and communicated and performance is managed to achieve those goals. Thus, the process model of change is closely aligned with NPM reform strategy and the Mar- ket culture.
NPM, implemented in various forms and with various names, has been one of the most popular reform strategies adopted around the world. However, as evi- denced by the rather large body of literature already developed on this topic, it takes more than experimenting with private corporations or nonprofit organizations and the notion of competition to reform the nature of public service. Instead, it appears that while market-based experiments abound in many administrative organiza- tions around the globe, the monopolistic nature of public bureaucracies remains entrenched as we struggle to find congruence with espoused values and adaptive behaviors in public service. To this point, Jon Pierre argued that in attempts to
“marketize the state,” public organizations must now choose between comprising either the traditional public service objective of ensuring legal security or the tradi- tional objective of ensuring efficiency when engaging in market competition.65 In addition, a lack of private-sector-type incentives to encourage public administra- tors to learn the new skills required of this reform strategy, and then manage and reward their performance accordingly, has thus far prevented full realization of the potentially positive effects of this reform strategy to this point in time.66
4.4 Symbolic Theories and the Continuous Learning Approach
Symbolic theorists assert that organizations are systems of emblematic discourse whose meanings must be interpreted,67 read,68 or deciphered69 to be accurately understood. Analysis of thematic patterns of symbolic discourse reveal how organi- zation members construe their daily work experiences and how these explanations relate to organizational values, beliefs, and actions.70 Grounded in the theoretical works of Argyris and Schon,71 continuous learning involves “double-loop learn- ing,” or changes in organizational values that shape and inform behavioral changes.
Because double-loop learning is a process through which organizational members assess the extent to which they have achieved stated objectives and whether those objectives remain relevant, it facilitates the “ability to remain open to changes in the environment and an ability to challenge operating assumptions in a most fun- damental way.”72 Thus, the continuous learning model of organizational change
places emphasis on the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to the ever-changing external environment. This model also incorporates participative management so as to empower employees to create high performance organizations.
The values held by members of the continuous learning organization are cen- tral to the change process. As organizational members develop shared values, they come to share a perception of the organization’s purpose and its ability to achieve its mission. Shared values then serve as internal controls through which employ- ees monitor their own behavior.73 In the continuous learning approach to change, organizational values provide the foundation on which the messages, behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, goals, and actions of leadership and staff are aligned.74
In addition to a reliance on organizational values, continuous learning also relies on two-way communication between institutional members and clients to achieve the organizational mission. This client-centered focus allows organizational processes to be driven by the needs of the citizenry and ultimately improves the organization’s capacity to function with flexibility, creativity, and accountability.
With an external client-centered emphasis on discourse and a flexible entrepre- neurial organizational environment, the continuous learning approach to change is aligned closely with the reform strategy of citizen governance and the Adhocracy culture.
As a tool of reform, experiments with electronic government are typically designed to facilitate communication between government and citizens. As such, technology is thought to make government more readily accessible and accountable.
Research shows, however, that coherence among and within national and subna- tional levels of government and sufficient resources to develop and maintain e-gov- ernment systems are critical to their success. Moreover, the nature of and extent to which information is shared with the citizenry is a function of the prevailing philosophy of public officials. Thus, although e-government can be a useful tool for obtaining and sharing public information, requesting public goods or services, and holding public officials more accountable for results, it can also serve the function of being little more than window dressing for public agencies wanting to appear more open or modern.75
4.5 Transformational Theories and the Chaos Approach
Within the context of transformational or psychodynamic theories, organizational forms and practices are viewed as manifestations of unconscious psychological pro- cesses.76 The human mind is acknowledged to have inherent constraints, of which we are consciously unaware, through which organizational members interpret their physical experience. The challenge faced by researchers of this theoretical frame is to “penetrate beneath the surface level of appearance and experience to uncover the objective foundations of social arrangements” and their meanings.77
The chaos model of organizational change, rooted in the natural sciences and quantum physics,78 emphasizes and enables rapid adaptability. Although this objec- tive is shared with continuous learning, different processes are utilized to achieve this goal. Where the continuous learning model relies on symbolic and participa- tive techniques, the chaos model relies primarily on the presence of complexity and disorder to facilitate increased organizational flexibility and responsiveness.79 Within the chaos model, the process of adaptation includes individual and shared responses as well as reactive and anticipatory behaviors. Whereas individual adap- tation occurs through learning, shared adaptation occurs through crossover repli- cation. In other words, individuals within the organization assume some, but not all, of the values and norms of other individuals in the organization. Other organi- zational actors with whom the first set of individuals comes in contact subsequently transfer some assumed values and norms to other organizational members. This recurring pattern of crossover replication serves to create a partly and wholly shared Self-Organizing culture that characterizes the dynamic nonlinear organizational environment. Each organizational actor within this change model develops strate- gies to cope with and survive in an unpredictable and disorderly environment.
To promote rapid adaptability, these strategies require complex learning that is facilitated by the tensions inherent in a nonlinear system. The Self-Organizing cul- ture operating within this complex environment necessarily produces diversity that enhances further learning and is paradoxically cooperative and competitive in a spontaneous way.80
Although it may appear that the disequilibrium inherent in the chaos model of reform precludes the existence of stability, this is not the case. Indeed, the pro- cesses of self-organization ultimately serve to create an emergent new order within the nonlinear system. These self-organizing processes involve three primary phases.
First, fluctuations in the environment move the organization away from equilib- rium. Second, additional environmental changes create organizational disorder and instability. Finally, a spontaneous emergent new order is produced as a result of the self-organizing dynamics of the system.81 Wheatley described self-organization as a chaotic process within which the organization “partners with its environment, … develops increasing autonomy from the environment and also develops new capaci- ties that make it increasingly resourceful.”82
In sum, the chaos model of change is characterized by a dual focus on the inter- nal and external environments and a shared learning among and between internal and external actors. Similarly, communitarianism seeks to bring together people and processes inherent to society, its governance institutions, and its private sector organizations through building community. Moreover, the communitarian objec- tive of establishing and maintaining social unity that preserves the integrity of soci- etal components combined with serving dual and often conflicting values produces inherent tensions due to serving conflicting and competing values (separated and integrated community, individual and collective responsibility, and social order and individual autonomy) in a nondeterministic way. Thus, the chaos model is
closely aligned with the communitarian model of reform and the Self-Organizing culture.
The trend toward developing an enhanced role for civil society in public ser- vice mirrors the goals of the communitarian model of reform.83 Changing the role of the state from provider to partner in the delivery of public goods and services surely has transforming effects on public administrators and their employing orga- nizations. However, because wholesale shifts in social and organizational cultures occur only over long periods of time, moving from one end of the culture-reform continuum to the other requires many incremental steps away from traditional bureaucratic values and norms along the way. Moreover, viewing nonprofit orga- nizations as allies in the coproduction or coprovision of public goods and services requires dramatic changes in traditionally held beliefs concerning the role of gov- ernment and of public administrators. Incentives may help facilitate this change and consequently ensure some level of social equity, but there are no guarantees.84 Therefore, changing the hearts and minds of public administrators and the cultures of their employing agencies to facilitate perceptions and actions that reflect coop- eration rather than competition, partnership rather than sectoral partisanship, and a united belief in promoting the common good are essential ingredients in success- fully realizing this model of reform.