Public Services Information Management

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Public Services Information Management

• 8 Organisations and Information

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Webers ideal-type of of bureaucracy
• Job specialisation
• Authority hierarchy
• Formal rules and regulations
• Impersonality
• Formal selection
• Career orientation

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• To this, we would nowadays add the following
• Importance of the informal organisation
• Organisations as constructed by practical
  rationality of their members (Silverman)

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Burns and Stalker(1961) The Management of
  Innovation
• Mechanistic
• Organismic
• organisations

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Mechanistic form ( 1 of 2)
• appropriate to conditions of relative
  stability.
• highly structured, members have well-defined,
  formal jobdescriptions/roles, and precise
  positions vis a vis others
• direction is from the top - down through the
  hierarchy. Communication is similarly
  vertical.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Mechanistic form (2 of 2)
• The organisation insists on loyalty and
  conformity from members to each other, to
  managers and to the organisation itself in
  relation to policies and methods.
• members need sufficient functionary ability to
  operate within organisational constraints

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Problems? ( 1 of 2)
• organisational creativity and effort can focus
  on internal problems only - systems and
  procedures.
• heavy administrative overhead - internal
  procedures consume more resources than
  external customer- focused operations.
• slow in responding to external change - lose
  touch with customers and external
  stakeholders.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Problems? (2 of 2)
• Parochialism, defend-my-patch behaviours occur.
  Organisational members can develop unhelpful,
  bounded mind-sets - perceptions of external
  and internal. Job and departmental boundaries
  can lead to the rational-legal organisation
  becoming bogged down in a spaghetti of
  tortuous processes and "need-to-consult" everyone
  and anyone.
• The status quo is defended rather than changed
  to meet new circumstances.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• The organic/organismic form (1 of 2)
• suitable to unstable, turbulent and changing
  conditions.
• The organismic firm tries to re-shape itself to
  address new problems and tackle unforeseen
  contingencies
• rather than a rigid, highly specialised
  structure a fluid organisational design is
  adopted which facilitates flexibility,
  adaptation, job redefinition

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• The organic/organismic form (2 of 2)
• departments, sections and teams are formed and
  reformed. Communication is lateral as well as
  vertical with emphasis on a network rather
  than a hierarchy.
• organisational members are personally and
  actively commitment to it beyond what is
  basically operationally or functionally
  necessary.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• McGregor Theory X Propositions
• A manager holding to these would be inclined to
  believe and state that
• On average my staff really do not want to work.
• . Even though I provide good rewards - many of my
  staff are still disinclined to apply consistently
  the kinds of effort the organisation needs.
• 3. Indeed most people prefer to be directed.
  They do not really wish to carry the burden of
  responsibility indeed they tend to avoid this.
  They have little ambition and prefer a secure,
  steady life.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• A Theory Y manager tends to believe that
• Given the right conditions for employees, their
  application of physical and mental effort in
  work is as natural as rest or play. Work is play,
  offers satisfactions and meaning.
• There are alternatives to reliance on external
  controls, pushing and threats - implied or
  real. These are not the only means for linking
  individual effort with organisational objectives.
  If people feel committed, they will exercise
  self-direction and self-control in the service of
  the firm's objectives.
• Their objectives will complement the firm's and
  commitment is a function of the "intrinsic"
  rewards associated with their achievement i.e.
  not just extrinsic rewards/punishments.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• A Theory Y manager tends to believe that .
• The Theory Y manager recognises the influence of
  learning. He/she believes that if the right
  conditions are created the average person learns
  not to accept and seek responsibility.
• The capacity to exercise imagination, ingenuity
  and creativity in the solution of organisational
  problems is widely not narrowly distributed in
  the work force
• In modern organisations, the intellectual
  potential of the average person are only
  partially utilised. People are capable of
  handling more complex problems.

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Line management is vertical
• Staff or professional allegiance is
  horizontal

lt-Professionals-gt
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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Putting it all together

Bureaucratic Personal
Mechanistic Organismic
Theory X Theory Y
Line (Vertical) Staff (Horizontal)
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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Working in smaller groups, consider the
  appropriate communication policies and strategies
  for
• Upward (b) Lateral (c) Downward
• communication flows in
• Mechanistic v. Organismic organisations

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Public Services Information Management8
Organisations and Information

• Then consider..
• How do we move from mechanistic to organismic
  models of organisations (with 1-2 years) ?