COMPLIANCE, GOALS, AND EFECTIVENESS

COMPLIANCE, GOALS, AND EFECTIVENESS

The second and major part of this volume is the voted to an examination of the relationship between compliance and other organizational variables. The association between compliance and organization goals is explored first.(Page. 103)

Organizations that have similar compliance structures tend to have similar goals, and organizations that have similar goals tend to have similar compliance structures. The second proposition obviously does not “Follow” from the first, and each must be validated in its own right. But the arguments is favor of both are similar : certain Combinations of compliance and goals are more effective than others. Hence we present argument and some illustrative materials that indicate an association between compliance and goals without making any inferences about the direction of the relationship.(Page. 103)

ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

A Classification of Goals

By organizational goals we mean a state of affairs which the organizational is attempting to realize. A goal is an image of a future state, which may or may not be brought about (Parsons, 1937,p.44). Once it is realized it becomes part of the organization or its environment, but it ceases to be an image that guides organizational activities and hence ceases to be a goal. The goal of an organization can be determined in the same way other sociological characteristics of organizations are established. It can be determined by and examination of organizational processes, such as the flow of work in a factory, and attributes of its structure, such as priorites in the allocation of means (reflected in a balance sheet or budget) or the assignment of personnel. (Page. 103-104)

The stated goals of an organization can serve as a clue to the actual goals of the organization. But a researcher cannot uncritically accept the stated goals of the organization as its actual sociological goals, since organizations tend to hold “public” goals for “front” purposes. Nor can he elicit this information from the top elites of the organization since they may not be free to communicate these goal to the researcher. Hence the need to draw on an examination and extrapolation of on-going organizational processes, especially “production” in the study of organizational goals. (Page. 104)

Organizational goals can be classified in many ways. The present classification is oriented toward examination of the relationship between compliance and goals. From this view point, three types of organizational goals can be distinguished: order, economic, and cultural goals. (Page. 104)

Organizations with order goals attempt to control actors who are deviants in the eyes of some social unit the organization is serving (frequently society) by segregating them from society and by blocking them from further deviant activities. This is a negative goal in the sense that such organizations attempt to prevent the occurrence of certain events rather than producing an object or a service. Order centered organizations differ according to the techniques and means they use to attain their goals. Some merely segregate deviants; other segregate and punish; and still others eliminate deviants altogether. But all are predominantly order-oriented. (Page. 104-105)

Organizations with economic goals produce commodities and services supplied to outsiders. These include not only the manufacturing industries but also various service organization, from the post office and insurance companies to movie theaters, Chinese laundries, banks, and brokerage firms. (Page. 105)

Organizations that have culture goals institutionalize conditions needed for the creation and preservation of symbolic object, their application, and the creation or reinforcement of commitments to such object. (Page. 105)

Most culture – oriented organizations specialize in the service of one or two culture goals. Research organizations, for example, specialize in the creation of new culture ( science is a subsystem of culture). Research-oriented universities emphasize creation of culture, although, like all educational organizations, they also contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage by transferring it from generation to generation, mainly through teaching. Professional organizations specialize  in the application of culture, mainly science and art. Churches strive to build in and to reinforce certain commitments to cultural object. (page.105)     

The goals of therapeutic mental hospitals is classified as cultural since the application of science is the central activity of these organizations. More over, if we see in the mental patient a deviant whose commitment to social norms and beliefs must be restored, it is clear why therapeutic goals have to be classified as culture goals (parsons, in Greenblatt, levinson, and Williams, 1957, p.111). (page.105)

Organizations that have social goals are classified, following our earlier argument, as a subtype of those oriented to culture goals. Social goal are served by organization that satisfy the gregarious needs of their members – for example, social clubs, fraternities, sororities, and the like. (page.105)   

Compliance and Organization Goals

What is the relationship between organizational goals and compliance? We would expect that organizational goals and compliance? We would expect that organizations serving order goals will tend to have a coercive compliance structure; organizations serving economic goals will tend to have a utilitarian compliance structure ; and organization serving culture goals will tend to have a normative compliance structure. (page.106)     

A Typology of Goals and Compliance

	Order	Economic	Culture
Coercive	1	2	3
Utilitarian	4	5	6
Normative	7	8	9

That is, of the nine possible combinations of goals and compliance shown in the accompanying table, we would expect most organizations to reveal one of three combinations (Nos. 1, 5, 9) ; there are, however, cases in the other six categories. For example, some deviants are segregated and controlled (but not “cured”) by the use of normative compliance in rehabilitation centers (“open” prisons). This would be a case in cell No. 7. In the same cell are homes for the aged which house those senile persons who earlier were committed (and to some degree still are) to closed mental hospitals (Colb, 1956; Drake, 1960, pp309-11). Their goal is order since they control actors who otherwise cannot or will not conform to social norms and folkways (tec and granick, 1960; granick and nahemow, 1960). These person are controlled by normative means and a minimum of coercion because of their general physical and mental state and, in particular, because of their emotional dependence on the home (granick, unpublished; herz and zelditch, 1952). Camps for conscientious objectors established during world war II in the united state also segregated deviants by predominantly normative means (Dahlke, 1945). Some production is conducted in most coercive organization, especially in champ of forced labor (No.2), and in some religious orders (No.8). some learning is carried out in strictly utilitarian organization, such us typing schools and some institutes for the study of foreign languages, where instructors have little if any normative power over student and the student orientation is calculative (No. 6). (page.106)   

Thus there are some cases in cells other than the there cardinal ones (Nos. 1, 5, 9), but these appear to be few and limited in significance. The large majority of organizations reveal one of the three central combinations. Prisons and custodial mental hospital fall in the first cell; blue-and white-collar industries fall in the fifth cell; religious organization, universal and collages, general hospital, voluntary associations, schools, therapeutic mental hospitals, and professional organizations fall in the ninth cell. (page.107)     

Many organization serve more than one goal, sometime these goal fall in the same general category, as in the case of universities which conduct both teaching and research, two culture goals. Sometime the same organizational serves goal of two different categories, as do forced-labor camps, which are both order and economic oriented. Usually, however, there is one predominant goals. The main point for us is that in organization that serve dual or multiple goals, we would expect to find a parallel “combination” in the compliance structure. For example, the more production-oriented a prison or a forced-labor camp becomes, the more utilitarian (hence, closer to the coercive-utilitarian dual type) we would expect its compliance structure to be. Thus the association between compliance and goals is maintained. (page.107)   

Political Goals and Compliance

Political goals at first glance seem impossible to place in our typology. It is often suggested that political goals, in particular those of parties, are to attain and maintain power. This is not an order, economic, or culture goal, but in a sense comprehends all three. Nevertheless, if we are to pursue our original objectives we must  ask: granted that all political organization are power –oriented, how do they differ? (page.107)   

Descriptions of political organizations as oriented to power alone result in part from not observing carefully the distinction between elite goals and organization goals. The leadership of political organization may, as michels suggest, have one predominant interest, to gain and retain power (1959,p.205). power is a universal key to all three ends; it may be pursued in order to control or change the the allocation coercion, to effect the allotment of material resources, or to change a normative pattern, as well as to serve various combinations of these goals. However, realization of the power goal requires that it be related to organizational goals which are more acceptable to the rank and file more legitimate in the eyes of the public (Selznick. 1952.pp. 2-4). Political organizational can be fruitfully classified according to the direction taken by this transformation of power goals into organizational goals. (page.108)   

Some political organizations, such as business unions, “tariff” parties, and the “Greenback” party, and much political activity on the municipal level, are predominantly concerned with allocation or relocation of material resources and services. These organizations can be seen as oriented to economic goals. (page.108)     

Other political organizations are predominantly concerned with gaining control of command positions over legitimate means of coercion, such as the armed forces and the police. This seems to be the central goals of revolutionary organizations, whatever their ideological orientation, especially shortly before and during the revolutionary episode it self (Brinton, 1938, pp. 405-6), and of groups such as the latin-american juntas (Cristensen, 1951). The organization can be seen as pursuing an order goals. (page.108)     

Finally, some social movements and radical parties focus on the dissemination of a new ideology. These are often revolutionary parties which are relatively unsuccessful in recruiting members and gaining power, which operate in societies where the existing political structure is well established. Typical examples are communist parties in Sweden, Norway, and Israel in the fifties (Lipset, 1960, pp.124 ff), “long-run” small parties which realize that gaining control of the state or influencing significantly the national allocation of resources is beyond them, and hence devote their limited means to indoctrinations of their rank and file, hoping that a change in the situation will open the power structure to them. These political organizations, at this stage, can be perceived as pursuing a culture goal: that of creating and reinforcing commitments to specific ideologies. (page.108)     

In short, the organizational goals of political organization may be economic, order, or culture goals-or, quite frequently, some combination of these. Thus political goals do not fall in one cell of our classification; instead, we find some type of political goals in all of them. The main point is that differences in political goal, as we have defined them, are associated with differences in the compliance structures of the organization serving them. (page.108)   

Political organization whose goal is the allocation of material resources tend to emphasize, as the means of maintaining the commitment of their members and supporters, continuous allocation of product and services, referred to as “sharing the spoils” “pork barreling” patronage, and the like. Some such practices are found in most political organizations, but this type tends to use allocation as its central control mechanism (steffens, 1957; cook and cleason. 1959). (page.109)     

Finally, political organizations with a culture goal, such as indoctrination, tend to emphasize normative compliance and to minimize both the use of coercion and remunerative allocation for internal control purposes (Duverger, 1954, pp. 154 ff; lenin, 1952). The major American parties are often contrasted with their European counterparts as being less ideological in their goals and more oriented to the allocation of resources. Similar differences, we would expect, would be found if the involvement of members were compared. For example, one would on the average expect commitment to parties in western Europe to be higher than in the united states, as reflected, for example, in the proportion of members changing their party affiliation. Thus, if the goals of political organizations are specified, the general proposition concerning relationships between the nature of the goal and the nature of the compliance structure seems to hold. (page.109)     

ORGANIZATIONAL EFECTIVENES

The preceding discussion raises the problem of accounting for the fact that certain type of goals and certain type of compliance structures tend to be associated. Are they functional requirements for each other ? could we go so far  as to say that one cannot rehabilitate in a traditional prison, produce in a religious order, segregate deviants by normative means? The answer seems to be, in one sentence : it is feasible but not effective. The three congruent type of goals and compliance are more effective than the other six combinations, all though all nine types are “possible”. (page.109)   

Survival versus Effectiveness Models

It is often suggested in sociological  literature that a specific relationship is “functional .” thus one might say that it is functional to employ coercive compliance if one is pursuing order goals, or to employ normative compliance  in serving culture goals. But there are two types of functional models that can be used in making such statements, and it is vital to know which one is being used. One is a survival (or feasibility) models; the other, an effectiveness model. Briefly, the two models differ as follows: A survival model specifies a set or requirements which, if fulfilled, allow a system to “exist”. All conditions specified are necessary prerequisites for the functioning of the system; remove one of them, and the system will disintegrate. The effectiveness model defines a pattern of interrelations among the element of the system which make it most effective in the service of a given goal (cf. Barnard, 1938, pp.43,55). (page.110)   

The difference between the two models is considerable. Sets of functional alternatives which are equally satisfactory from the view point of the first model have a yes or no answer to the question : is a specific relationship functional? The effectiveness models tell us that although several functional alternatives satisfy a requirement (or a “need”) some are more effective in doing so than others. There are first, second, third, and nth choices. Only rarely are two patterns full alternatives in this sense; only rarely do they have the same effectiveness value. (page.110)    

The majority of functionalists work with survivals models. This has left them open to the criticism that although societies or other social units changed considerably, the functionalists still see them as the same unit. Very rarely does a society, for example, lost its ability to fulfill the “basic” (i.e., survival) functional prerequisites (Myrdal, 1944, pp. 1051-56). This is one of the reasons why it has been claimed that the functional model does not alert the researcher to the dynamics of exiting social units. (page.110-111)  

March and simon  have pointed out explicitly, in their valuable analysis of organizational theories, that the Bernard-simon analysis of organization is based on a survival model: (page.111)  

The Bernard-simon theory of organizational equilibrium is essentially a theory of motivation – a statement of the conditions under which an organization can induce its members to continue participation, and hence assure organizational survival…………..hence, an organization is “solvent” – and will continue in existence – only so long as the contributions  are sufficient to provide inducements in large enough measure to draw forth these contributions. (1954, p.84, italics supplied). (page.111)  

If, on the other hand, one accepts the definition that organizations are social unit oriented to the realization of specific goals, it follows that the application of an effectiveness model is especially appropriate for the study of this type of social unit. It is utilized throughout this volume. (page.111)   

Compliance, Goals, and Effectiveness

Let us assume that a wide range of empirical studies has supported our hypothesis about the association between compliance and goals, and has demonstrated that is fact organizations that serve order goals do tend to have a coercive compliance structure; that those serving economic goals tend to have a utilitarian compliance structure; and that those serving culture goals tend to have a normative compliance structure. We have then to explain this association. The first step has been taken above, when we suggested that these three associations are more effective than the other possible six. In other words, effectiveness is our central explanatory intervening variable. In the following paragraphs we attempt to show in some detail why each of the three congruent relationship at a time, they are naturally on a less abstract and general level than the central intervening variable, that of effectiveness. (page.111-112) 

ECONOMIC GOALS AND EFFECTIVE COMPLIANCE – There are several reasons why organizations that have economic goals function more effectively when they employ coercion or normative power as their predominant means of control. Production is a rational activity, which requires systematic division of labor, power, and communication, as well as a high level of coordination, it therefore requires also a highly systematic and precise control of performance. This can be attained only when sanctions and rewards are the only ones that can be so applied, because money differentials are far more precisely measurable than force, prestige, or any other power differential. (page.112)  

Much production requires some initiative, interest, “care”, responsibility, and similar attributes of the lower participants. Engineers and personnel people frequently describe the great damage caused when workers carry out orders to the letters but ignore the spirit of the directive, in other to “get even” with a supervisor. Effective performance requires some degree of voluntary cooperation, which is almost unattainable under coercion. Only the limited types of work that can be effectively controlled through close supervision (e.g., carrying stones to build a pyramid, rowing in the galleys) can be controlled by coercion without great loss of effectiveness. We would therefore expect production in coercive organization to be of this kind, or to be ineffective. The following statement by work supervisor in a prison may therefore reflect not the inmates’ “inherent” inability to work, but their alienation from work under coercion: (page.112-113)

The total result of the prevalence of these attitudes has been to reduce “imprisonment at hard labor” to a euphemism existing chiefly in the rhetoric of sentencing judges and in the minds of the uniformed public. The inmate social system not only has succeeded in neutralizing the laboriousness of prison labor in fact, but also has more or less succeeded in convincing prison authorities of the futility of expecting any improvement in output …. The prevalent attitudes of work supervisors to ward convict labor : “convict are inherently unindustrious, unintelligent, unresourceful, and uninterested in honest work.” (McCorkle and Korn, 1945, p.92). (page.113)

We would also expect either that forced – labor camps will be predominantly  punitive, and productivity – that is, effectiveness –low : or that chiefly manual work, of the type described above, will be carried out. (page.113)  

Forced labor in soviet countries during the stalin period seems to have been mainly of the highly punitive, relatively ineffective type (parvilahti, 1960). More ever work in these camps consisted typically of building barracks, felling trees, excavation, or performing duties of  an orderly in the camp (Rosada and Gwozdz, 1952, p.26). these jobs, to the degree that their description allows us to judge, are of the routine, simple, easily supervised type, as specified above. The Japanese relocation camps in the united states during world war II were not highly coercive but at the same time did not develop a utilitarian system. Workers were paint 50 cents a day. The consequence was that some work was conducted, but the level of productivity was very low (Leighton, 1945, pp. 72, 86-87, 108, 242-243). (page.113)

Weber pointed out the advantages or remunerative over coercive control of modern work when he showed that slaves cannot serve as the basis of  a rational economy (of the bourgeois capitalist type) whereas free wage labor can. He lists eight reasons, most of them resting on differences in mobility between the two groups, but he also notes that “ it has in general been impossible to use slave labour in the operation of tool and apparatus, the efficiency of which required a high level of responsibility and the involvement of the operators self interest .” (1947, p.253) J. N. Blum ( 1948) compared the productivity of servile agricultural labor with that of wage labor during the first  part of the nineteenth century in Austria – hungary. He found that wage labor was from two to two and a half times as effective as servile labor (ibid,. pp. 192-202). (page.113)

  The use of normative power in organizations economic goals may lead to highly effective performance, but in general only for work of a particularly gratifying nature, such as research and artistic performance, or for limited periods of time, particularly in crises. Thus, for example, the work of transferring the defeated british army home from Dunkirk, under the pressure of the approaching german army, was conducted by a fleet of volunteers under normative command. Similar efforts on the industrial front take place in the early stages of war. (page.114)

Normative compliance can be used to conduct “service” of a dramatic nature (in the sense that they have a direct relation  to ultimate values), such as fighting fires, helping flood victims, searching for lost children, or collecting money for the march of dimes and similar causes. But production engaged in by lower participants in typical blue-collar or white-collar industries lacks such qualities. Is relation to ultimate goals is indirect; it is slow to come to fruition; to worker in segregated from the fruits; and activities are highly routinized, speard over long period of time, and evoke little public interest. Hence production as a rule cannot rely on the moral commitment of lower participant and the normative power of organizational representatives; for example, when a relatively “dramatic” service such a searching for lost children requires continued, routinized activity, the number of volunteers and the level of normative compliance tend to decline rapidly. This is one of the reason such activities are often delegated to permanent utilitarian organization, such as the fire department and “professional” fund risers. In summary, effective production of commodities and service is carried out almost exclusively by utilitarian organizations. (page.114)

CULTURE GOALS AND EFFECTIVE COMPLIANCE – Organizations that serve culture goals have to rely on normative powers because the realization of their goals requires positive and intense commitments of lower participant to the organization – at least to its representative, and such commitment cannot be effectively attained by other power. (page.114)

Studies of charisma, persuasion and influence show that commitment (or identification) of followers commitment to value are created, transmitted, or extended ( parsons and shisls, 1952,p.17 ff,). Communication studies demonstrate the low effectiveness of formal communication not supported by informal leaders, and the importance of positive effective interpersonal relation between the priest and the parishioner, the teacher and the student, the political leader and his followers, for effective operation of their respective organization (karsh, seidman, Lilienthal, 1953; harnqivist, 1956, pp. 88-133). In short, the attainment of culture goals such as the creation, application or transmission of value requires the development of identification with the organizational representatives. (page.115)

When participants are alienated from the organization they are less likely to identify with is representative than if they are committed to it. However, even when commitment to the organization is high, identification with its representatives need not occur. But since normative power is the least alienating and the most committing kind of power, it is the most conducive to the development of the identification with representative and hence to effective service of cultural goals. We shall  we below that in organization that serve economic or orders goals rather than culture goals, identification of follower with organization representatives indeed a far less common component of the elite-lower participant relationship (See Chapter VII). (page.115)

Coercion makes identification with organizational representatives very unlikely. This is one of the major reasons rehabilitation work is unsuccessful in prisons and also a reason for the strong objection of progressive educational philosophy to the use of corporal punishment. (page.115)

In order to build patient’s motivation to the cured, doctor have to attain their nonrational commitment-to achieve normative power over them-since patient do not have the knowledge required to accept the doctors direction on rational grounds. A similar relationship exist between teacher and student and other professional and their client. (page.116)

Remuneration cannot serve as the major means of control in organization serving culture goals because the commitments it tends to build are too mild and rational. Manipulation of pay, fines, and bonuses does not lead to internalization of values. At best it produces superficial, expedient, over commitment. (page.116)

In summary, organizations that serve culture goals must, for effective service of these goals, rely predominantly on normative compliance and not on other means of control. (page.116)

Order goals and effective compliance – effective service of order goals requires that coercive rather than remunerative or normative power be the predominant means of control of the organization serving this goal. (page.116)

Remunerative powers as means of control can augment but not replace coercion as the central means of control in serving order goals. Fines, for instance, can be used to a limited to limited degree to punish minor violations of the code in prisons. But in general the income of inmate is too small and violations are to frequent and, in the eyes of the prison, too serve, to be controlled by remuneration. More over, control of deviance, the other goal of these organization, requires that a depriving situation be maintained. Coercive control is typically negative, inflicting deprivations but granting few gratification. Other types of control tend to balance reward and punishment, if not stress reward. (page.116-117)

Normative compliance is infective in the service of order goals since it is, to all intents and purposes, impossible to maintain normative compliance in order –oriented organizations for the large majority of inmates. Usually rather atypical such as middle – class executives committed to open prisons in Sweden for driving while intoxicated, or conscientious objectors – might be controlled by normative means. But most inmates do not allow their behavior to be significantly effected by prison representatives. The social and culture background, reinforced by inmate social groups, and the prisons situation, which is inevitably depriving because of its segregative nature, generate high alienation which does not allow the normative power of the prison to develop. The inmates “oppose, officials.”(Weinberg, 1942.p.720) in short, control by the use of normative power in the prison is in general neither effective nor feasible. (page.117)

  Coercion is common even in custodial mental hospitals, where confinement of deviants and not their punishment is the other goal. One reason for the prevalence of the coercion seems to lie in the level of effectiveness demanded by society or by the community in which the organizations is situated. These external collectivities tend to ask both of prisons and of custodial mental hospitals one hundred per cent effectiveness in controlling escapes and suicides. This requirement leads to the need to apply coercion, and to apply more coercion than would other wise be necessary. Lindsay (1974.p.92) has pointed out that mores, which in other circumstances can rest on what we have referred to here as moral commitments and normative powers, require the support of coercion (their transformation into laws) when they are expected to hold for all people all the time. Even when the large majority of people are willing to comply, there are some people all the time, and most people sometimes, who are not willing to comply. Hence even when in general normative compliance would do, the expectation of “one hundred per cent” performance increases the use of coercion, since deviating minority can rarely be specified with complete assurance. Sykes made this point in his study of a prison: (page.117)

One escape from the maximum security prison is sufficient to arouse public opinion to a fever pitch and an organization which stands or falls on a single case moves with understandable caution. The officials, in short, know on which side their bread is buttered. Their continued employment is tied up with the successful performance of custody ….. in the light of the public uproar which follow close on the heels of an escape from prison, it is not surprising that the prison officials have chosen the course of treating all inmates as if they were equally serious treats to the task of custody. (1958,pp.18 and 20) (page.117)

Grusky  showed that basically the same situation exist in a minimum security prison (1959, p.458). the same point is true for custodial mental hospitals as well, and is one of the reasons why “opening” them has proceeded so slowly. (page.117)

This is association between order goals and coercive compliance illustrates a general point : the specification of an effectiveness model – for example, effective compliance-goal pairs-is influenced by socio-culture environmental factors. This is true because the social groups that set organizational goals tend also to set limits on the means that the organizational can legitimately use to attain these goals, including the means that can be used for control purposes. For example, to the degree that the public become more tolerant of inmates’ escapes, in particular those of mental patients who are a nuisance but do not endanger the public safety (e.g., some types of exhibitionists), less coercion can be applied without loss of effectiveness. Thus for each socio-cultural state, the concrete combination of compliance and goal which creates the highest degree of effectiveness differs. But the basic relationship between the type of goal and the type of compliance – as specified in our hypothesis – does not differs. In some cultures, for example, the most effective attainment of order goals to require more use of coercion than economic or culture goals; economic goals to be most effectively served by utilitarian structures; and culture goals by normative ones. (page.118)

Dual compliance structures are found in organizations that serve goals differing in their compliance requirements either because they fall in diferent categories or because effective attainment of one goal requires development of supplementary tasks belonging to different goal categories. A business union, for example, has to maintain calculative involvement in pre-strike and strike day. A full examination of the relationship between compound goals and compliance structure is deferred to chapter XVI, since in other to handle the issue additional variable, to be examined in the following chapters, have to be drawn in to the analysis. (page.118)

A Dynamic Perspective

There are the major effective combinations of goals and compliance; order goals and coercive compliance, economic goal and utilitarian compliance, and culture goal and normative compliance. The other six combinations are less effective than these three, although organizations having such combination may “survive” and even to some degree realize their goal. In the six ineffective types we would except to find not only wasted means, psychological and social tension, lack of coordination, and other signs of in effectiveness, but also a strain toward an effective type. We would expect to find some indication of pressure on goals, compliance, or both, to bring about an effective combination. Thus, for example, some contemporary mental hospital have incongruent goal-compliance structure. They are expected to maintain “order” (i.e,. inmates should not be able to escape or commit suicide), but to do so by predominantly normative means (cell No.7 , p. 106). This incongruity creates pressure to regain or extend the social license to use coercion ( movement to ward No.1). or to  educate the public so that these hospital will be allowed to measure their success not by lack of escapes but by rehabilitation rates-that is, to “adjust” the goals to their compliance structure (movement toward No.9). (page.119)

The tendency toward an effective compliance goal combination may be blocked by environmental factors affecting any one of the three major variable making up the relationship : involvement, power, and goal. Involvement, as we have seen, is determined in part by such external factor as membership in other system, previous value commitment of the participants, and basic personality structure. The kind of power an organizations can employ depend, among other things, on the resources it can command and the social license it can attain. Organizational goals are determinate in part by the values of the social environment, and change in the goals which in the organization can initiate or introduce are limited by constraints include board of director or trustees (in cases where these represent external financial interest or various community elites and are not used as “front” by the organization); control organization (e.g,. regulatory com missions, grand juries, and congressional committees); in addition  to less institutionalized forms of social control, such as the voting public, the press, and various voluntary associations supporting one value or another (such as the anti-defamation league of B’nai B’rith, or the N.A.A.C.P.). these constraint explain the lack of congruence between goals and compliance, despite the loss of effectiveness generated by such states, and despite the strain toward effectiveness which characterized valid  if, when these constraints are removed or reduced, the organizational compliance-goal structure changes in the direction of one of the effective types. (page.119-120)

SUMMARY

 This chapter was the first to examine the relationship between compliance and other organizational variables. The association studied was that of compliance and goals. By goals we mean future states of affairs to which the organization is oriented. There are three major type of goals: order, economic, and culture. Political goals, we saw, may fall in all three categories. Organizations that have order goals tend to have a coercive compliance structure; those that have economic goals tend to have a utilitarian  compliance structure; and those that serve culture goals tend to have a normative compliance structure. Other combinations of compliance and goals are feasible and sometimes found, but they are less effective.(page.120)

The functional model used throughout this book is one that determines which functional alternatives are more effective in attaining specified goals, rather than one that specifies which items of behavior or cultural patterns allow the system to continue to operate. We examined briefly the reasons leading us to believe that coercion is a functional requirement of effective service of order goals, utilitarian compliance of economic goals, and normative compliance of culture goals. The chapter concluded with a dynamic statement similar to that relating power and involvement. It was suggested that when environmental constraints allow, organizations move from incon-gruent goal-compliance combinations to congruent (effective) ones.(page.120)

 

source : Etzioni Amitai . 1975. A Comparative Analysis of COMPLEX Organisations Resived and Enlarged edition. New York:The Free Press