The Anatomy of Public
Organization

Introduction:-
 The use of specialized language within an organization socializes it’s members into it’s culture and specific bureaucratic ideology .
 Bureaucratic managers use this culture as an actor in the public policy process.
 Bureaucratic organizations are about problem solving or at least problem coping.
 Values shape the organization’s approach to solve or cope with these problems.

1. Budgetary needs and constraints.
2. Standards promoted by powerful unions of public employees who make up the agency.
3. Codes of ethics adopted by professional associations who share members with that bureaucracy.
4. The need to be efficiently productive
(conflict).
5. The morale of members of the organization.

• Definition:-
It is the way an organization views its role within the broader society.
It is a complex interlinking of assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, norms and values that collectively guide an organization.
• Values are applied by the members who cope with policy problems that are central to the agency’s goals and mission.
Norms of bureaucratic behaviuor are acquired by members and guide their routine in dealing with problems.
Thus we can conclude that “BUREAUCRATS ARE MADE, not made” .

Organizational values cannot differ greatly from societal values, although it may stress some more than others.
Ex:private property
Respect.
Organizational Values
Societal Values
Public Policy implementation

1. Determines what members see as right or wrong and how they should deal with certain circumstances and problems.
2. Reduces the need for authority, rules and controls.
3. It is a powerful mechanism that guides the actions of organization members by approving or prohibiting varied patterns of behavior.
4. An organization uses culture to recruit individuals who hold similar values.
5. To deal better with multiple or even conflicting goals imposed by a legislature. (societal compromise)

The question is:-
Is Organizational Culture all beneficial in its effects?
 No, effects may be negative.
 Excessive organizational inflexibility.
 Organization becomes so rigid in decision making it fails to adopt to any change in its external environment.
 Groupthink:- which is a mode of thinking in which people strongly seek consensus that their decisions become unrealistic.

 Anthony Downs defines Bureaucratic
Ideology as follows:- is a verbal image of the good society with which a particular bureau is concerned, plus the chief means of constructing that portion.
 Ideology flows downwards from the organization’s higher levels of formal authority and infuses its communication systems both formal and informal

 Top-level officials develop the ideology to provide an efficient means of communication with both external environment and bureau insiders.
 The Bureau ideology states agency goals in terms of the organization’s policy objectives in serving the broader society.
 The verbal image of the bureau’s ideology enable
*others to use this ideology in decision making without additional cost.
*others = legislators, voters, related interest groups, low-level organization members.

• Managers of government agencies have welldeveloped ideas of what government “ought to do”. These ideas are defined to each agency’s narrow area of expertise.
• Agency ideology may be:-
HARD:- holds that the bureaucracy must be interested not only in preserving its existing policies, but also in imposing a new set of policies.
or SOFT:- the soft version of an agency ideology is that the existing program of the agency constitutes a set of ideas favored by the bureaucracy.

 Jargon is slang language.
One way managers use to manupilate symbols in a bureau ideology.
 Acronyms new words formed from the first letters of a series of words.
Thus, jargon & Acronyms are the specialized language of experts.

Briefly discuss internal sources of values to a bureaucratic agency.
Give examples whenever you can.
Use the net. Web sites in the book.

1. _____ _____ is the way an organization views the broader society in a complex interlinking of assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, norms, and values that collectively guide an organization.
a. Organizational culture b. Systems model c. Management socialization d. Organizational groupthink

2. _________ is a verbal image of the good society and the chief means of obtaining it.
a. Culture b. Ideology c. Groupthink d. Socialization

3. _____ is a mode of thinking within a cohesive group engaged in by persons who value consensus so much as to override a realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.
a. Dysfunctionalism b. Miles Law c. Group think d. The Peter Principle

4. Which of the following is emphasized by bureaucratic ideology?
a. benefits over costs b. efficiency c. achievements and future capabilities d. All of the above

5. The specialized vocabulary and idioms of those in the same type of work or profession are known as which of the following?
a. Groupthink b. Ideology c. Jargon d. Acronyms

6. The lack of credence given to the State
Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and
Research before the U.S. invasion of Iraq exemplifies which of the following?
a. Stovepiping.
b. Groupthink c. Outsourcing d. Bureaupathic ideology

7. List at least FOUR values that have been characterized as “core values” in
American society._____ ______ ______
_______.
8. _____ is a mode of thinking within a cohesive group engaged in by persons who so seek consensus as to override a realistic appraisal of an alternative course of action.
9. A _____ _____ is a verbal image of that portion of the good society with which a particular bureau is concerned.

10._____ are words formed by using the first letter, or first few letters, of a series of words, often becoming part of the jargon of an agency.
11.A major foundation of bureaucratic power is ______, or specialized knowledge.

12.------ Groupthink is the way an organization views the broader society in a complex interlinking of assumptions, beliefs, norms, and values.
13.------- Ideology is a verbal image of the good society and the chief means of achieving it.
14.-------- Bureau managers use free information streams to transmit information about an agency and its ideology and values.
15. -------Expertise, or specialized knowledge, is a major source of bureaucratic power.