Summer 4

Reading

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). Social control of organizations. In The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective (pp. 38-61). Harper & Row.

 

Background

Pfeffer and Salancik’s book is one of the first to fully examine organizations’ relationship with their external environments. And they posit that much of what happens in organizations, not just their products/outcomes, is influenced in a significant way by their environments.

 

Jeff Pfeffer’s first faculty position was at the University of Illinois, where he and Gerry Salancik collaborated on a number of seminal works, including this book. The authors introduce and elaborate on the idea of resource dependency, a concept that Jeff Pfeffer first explored in his PhD dissertation at Stanford (which he finished in a record three years).

 

The core elements of resource dependence theory are: (1) social context matters; (2) organizations utilize strategies to enhance their autonomy and pursue their self-interest; and (3) power is important for understanding organizations’ internal and external actions. To paraphrase Emerson (1962), one organization has power over another if it controls resources that the other organization values and cannot get elsewhere. Conversely, the first organization is dependent on the second to buy these resources. Thus it is often the case that two organizations have power over each other, leading to interdependence.

 

Questions

1. Describe the various dimensions of interdependence, including outcome and behavior interdependence, competitive versus symbiotic, and symmetric/asymmetric. Use your current organization to provide an example of these concepts.

 

 

1. On page 44 the authors describe a number of conditions that influence whether and how much one organization is able to exert control over another. Choose one particular resource that is important for schools and/or universities (it can be money, materials, expertise, personnel, etc.). For each of the 10 conditions, describe the relationship between the school/university—as the focal organization—and the organization that controls the resource.

 

 

1. What role does regulation play in resource dependency?

 

 

1. On pages 46 through 51, the authors describe three factors that are critical in determining dependence.  As a way to remember each of these factors, create a mathematical equation wherein the factors are inputs and the output is the level of dependence. In this equation, you can use words or you can use letters to represent words; e.g. Resource Importance = RI. There are many possible ways you could express this equation. Bonus: incorporate the ideas of countervailing power and asymmetric dependence, which described on pages 52-54.

 

 

 

Reading

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49(2), 149–164.

 

Background

Mike Hannan is a professor in the school of business and the department of sociology at Stanford University. His work primarily focuses on organizational change and how change can be modeled both quantitatively and qualitatively. His most recent work involves understanding organizational categories in the wine industry. John Freeman was a professor in the school of business at UC Berkeley, where he founded and led the Center for Entrepreneurship. Together, Hannan and Freeman did pioneering work in organizational ecology, addressing the question, “Why are there so many kinds of organizations?”

 

Questions

5. Describe what is meant by inertial pressures. Give an example from educational organizations.

 

 

6. What are some of the factors that lead to a high level of structural inertia? How does is this similar to/different than the idea of socializing toward the “code,” as described by March (1991)?

 

 

7. The authors note that the costs of starting an organization are nontrivial (p. 152). Drawing from their reasoning, discuss why, then, individuals and entities decided to form schools and universities (and continue to form them now).

 

 

8. Apply the concept of life-cycle variations in inertia (p. 157) to your current organizational context.

 

 

Reading

Orton, J. D., & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization. The Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203–223.

 

Background

Karl Weick is a psychologist in the school of business at the University of Michigan. While completing his PhD at Ohio State, the faculty recognized the importance of his work and designed a program in organizational psychology specifically for him and a fellow student. Throughout Weick’s career, he has introduced and elaborated on a number of the key concepts in organizational theory, including mindfulness, sensemaking, and coupling. Weick was instrumental in defining and testing out the theories underpinning coupled and decoupled systems, and, as in this article, loosely coupled systems.

 

Doug Orton studied the forms of organizations, in particular within the military. Orton and colleagues developed the idea of “human terrain teams” designed to acquire sociological knowledge in battlefield/conflict situations.

 

As with the Meyer and Rowan (1977) piece, Orton and Weick recognize that decoupling occurs when the demands of the internal, technical environment are in tension with institutional forces in the broader field (see the first and second full paragraphs on p. 205). However, as they describe, the research on loose coupling reveals a number of wide range of perspectives.

 

Orton and Weick are predisposed to using complex language. Take your time getting through this reading, but don’t fret if some of their constructions allude you.

 

Questions

9. Orton and Weick describe five “voices” that harness the concept of, and contribute to our understanding of loose coupling. Briefly summarize each of the five voices (the diagram on page 217 can help guide your summary).

 

 

10. The authors argue, in the “Voice of Compensations” section, that there are three main ways that organizations address the problem of loose coupling. Describe how each of these approaches is manifest in your current organization.

 

 

11. The authors describe three puzzles that loose coupling might help illuminate. Choose one of these and discuss how it might enhance our understanding of educational systems.