David A. Whetten

Organizational Dysfunctions of Decline

The article discusses the dysfunctional attributes of organizations experiencing periods of decline. Organizations involved in the study were gauged using a number of dysfunctional attributes in organizations identified by scholars, including the centralization of decision making, a lack of long-term planning and a pronounced decrease in the adoption of innovations. According to the author, the aforementioned attributes are characteristic of both stable and declining organizations. Only organizations experiencing growth in revenues seem to avoid these problems.

The Instrumental Value of Interorganizational Relations: Antecedents and Consequences of Linkage Formation

This study examines factors that enhance an agencys efforts to establish interorganizational linkages that are instrumental to the achievement of its goals. Among the findings is that high value l...

Organization Setsize and Diversity People-Processing Organizations and Their Environments

This study investigates the interorganizational linkages ofpeople-processrng organiza tions. Specifically, the determinants of the size and diversity of their organization sets are examined. Predictors are grouped according to the amount of discretion local agency directors have to manipulate them. It is shown that the best predictors of organization set size and composition are variables over which local adminrstrators have little control. The implications of this finding for the design of social service de livery systems are discussed.

A Model for Teaching Management Skills

A model is proposed which helps students Improve their competencies In critical management skills. Issues surrounding classroom application of the model are discussed.

Management Skill Training: a Needed Addition To the Management Curriculum

Some rather distressing research has been published during the past two decades regarding the relationship between students’ achievement in business school course work and success after graduation. In their study of a sample of Stanford MBA graduates Williams and Harrell (1964) found there was no correlation between undergraduate grades or grades in required MBA courses and salary level of graduates. They did, however, find a positive correlation between elective course grades and subsequent salary figures. Ten years later, Weinstein and Srinivasan (1974) reported similar results. They found no significant effect of grades on the salaries of staff managers and only a modest positive relationship for line managers. A more recent study of this type conducted by Pfeffer (1977) also showed no correlation between entering admission test scores or grade point average and the salary level of business school graduates. If we assume that grade point average is a reasonably accurate reflection of a student’s mastery of the concepts taught in school, and salary level is a reasonable indicator of career success, one wonders why achievement in contemporary professional management education programs has so little effect on the

The concept of horizontal hierarchy and the organization of interorganizational networks: A comparative analysis

Abstract This paper is an attempt to describe the organization of interorganizational fields with the concept of horizontal hierarchy. It specifies certain structural properties of interorganizational field based on different types of linkages between organizations, and develops testable hypotheses by focusing on the interrelationships between the properties of these linkages within the conceptual definition of horizontal hierarchy. These hypotheses are later tested on data collected from manpower organizations in 17 communities of a large midwestern state.

Environmental Change, Enrollment Decline and Institutional Response: Speculations on Retrenchment in Colleges and Universities.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of environmental change and institutional response that shows why a variety of strategies are required by colleges and universities in dealing with declining enrollments. Much as been written in recent years about how institutional leadership should plan for and react to declining enrollments, but no comprehensive overview of the problem or response to it has emerged (Whetten, 1981). Enrollment decline has been treated as an undifferentiated phenomenon that affects all institutions in much the same manner. As a result, the strategies for coping with enrollment decline suggested in the literature are often portrayed as being universally applicable. In this paper we argue that there are different types of environmental conditions that cause enrollment decline and that require different types of institutional retrenchment strategies. The paper is divided into three parts. First, a model of environmental decline is developed and its application to higher education explored. Second, data on college and university enrollments between 1976 and 1979 are presented to illustrate

2000 Presidential Address: What Matters Most

In the process of preparing this talk, I gained a new appreciation for Samuel Johnsons observation There is nothing that focuses the mind like being hanged in a fortnight. I want to express appreciation to my dear friends and colleagues Kim Cameron and Bob Quinn for helping me understand yesterday at breakfast why this podium has appeared so gallows-like in my mind for much longer than a fortnight. With their wise, gentle, but persistent probing, they pulled from me an admission of fear. The prospect of speaking to my colleagues was not intimidating, but the unresolved tension within me between what I wanted to say and what I was terrified of expressing had a death grip on my thinking and my feelings. Although I had already prepared several different presidential messages, Kim and Bob helped me understand that I was using the pretense of crafting a better expression from my head as an excuse for ignoring what I wanted to say from my heart. My association with Kim and Bob has spanned three decades. As masters students in the sociology department at Brigham Young University, we shared a common teaching assistantship. Our supervising professor had an owl-like visage that seemed highly appropriate for a man of profound wisdom. At the beginning of the semester, it was our lot as TAs to handle the myriad complaints from students about the professors teaching objectives. You see, as we had learned from others in the department, there was a high negative correlation between the age of this particular professor and the amount of canonized sociological content he taught in his courses. By the time we came on the scene, he was near retirement and much more interested in sharing with his students sound, enduring principles for creating effective relationships-within families, formal organizations, and even communities-than in teaching them the reigning sociological pronouncements on these matters. My response to the disgruntled students was something like this: You must decide how important it is to you to learn the content of this course as it was described in the catalogue. If you need this information so you can be prepared for upper division classes or graduate school, then I suggest you switch to another section of the course. However, if you are willing to release your professor from his obligation to teach you the discipline of sociology and, instead, allow him to teach you what he believes matters most, this class could change your life. Today I would like to make a similar request: that you release me from the obligation of speaking to you as your president so that I can share with you some of the things that have changed my life. To begin, I wish to acknowledge that Kim and Bob have been a large part of not only what I have to say today but what I have said in academic settings for the past thirty years. But more important, they account for an even larger part of who I am today as a person. Indeed, I wish to use our thirty-year relationship as a model for the kind of associations among professionals that I hope become more common within this professional association. Members who attended the 1998 Academy of Management meeting in San Diego may recognize this as the theme I selected as program chair. In my introduction of the theme in the conference program notes, I referred to a conversation I had with Lou Pondy, my mentor at the University of Illinois. After reflecting on my complaint that no matter what teaching method I used I was not succeeding as a teacher, he said, You will warrant the title professor when you discover what you are willing to profess. Building on the notion that this provocative advice to a young professor seems equally appropriate for a young profession, I continued, What matters most is that we come together to discover what we are willing to profess. I view my presidential remarks as a personal response to the charge I issued to the Academy as program chair, as well as a tribute to my deceased mentor, Lou, who gently prodded me to speak from my heart.