Steven Maynard-Moody

Street-Wise Social Policy: Resolving the Dilemma of Street-Level Influence and Successful Implementation

Street-level influence over the delivery of social policy is paradoxical; it promotes flexibility and innovation, yet allows indifference and abuse. Even in highly bureaucratized human service organizations, policy implementation requires policy adaptation (Mashaw 1983). Streetlevel workers who are close to problems and clients are likely to know what works in local environments and for particular groups (Handler 1986). Street-level workers are an important a source of innovation, yet most have little formal authority to make programmatic decisions. Their good ideas are often ignored by those higher up. Street-level adaptations of policy are not always positive, however. Many street-level workers use their influence over policy implementation to serve their own interests; they change policy to make their work easier and safer or to thwart policy with which they do not agree rather than to serve the needs of clients or the public (Hogwood and Gunn 1984; Levine, Musheno, and Palumbo 1980). Street-level influence over policy implementation is, therefore, both a prerequisite for justice in the delivery of human services and a source of considerable abuse. Street-level influence

Reorganization as Status Drama: Building, Maintaining, and Displacing Dominant Subcultures

establishing organizational cultures, and the impact of sagas and myths on structure.3 Consultants have watched their carefully designed interventions founder on unspoken assumptions. They have devised diagnostic culture audits and culture-gap profiles to guide their actions.4 Bureaucrats and executives act as tribal leaders; they tell stories, repeat myths, and stage rites and ceremonials.5

Beyond Implementation: Developing an Institutional Theory of Administrative Policy Making

The ghost of the politics-administration dichotomy haunts implementation theory. After all the critiques, administrative policy making is still seen as a component or step in the policy process that is dominated by elected officials. For example, Kelman recently examined the different institutional settings of policy making.1 Elected officials, in his view, are and should remain the primary source of policy ideas and choices with administrators, in theory, responsible for translating these ideas and choices into practice. Other scholars underscore the lack of effective control by legislators and elected executives. But even those who acknowledge administrative initiative and autonomy see administrators as servants, however weak their masters.

Weeding an Old Garden Toward a New Understanding of Organizational Goals

Currently the conceptual status of organizational goals is uncertain. The organizational goal construct has been the brunt of numerous criticisms and is left out of several major contemporary perspectives on organizations. Building on the insights of the critics of the traditional goal construct, this article argues that goals have an important place in the analysis and management of organizations. Goals are viewed from a behavioral perspective and it is argued that some goal behaviors produce consistency in organizational structure and performance, whereas others lead to variability. A process theory of purposeful variation is presented in which goal behaviors play an important role.

Community Corrections as an Organizational Innovation: What Works and Why

The contemporary emphasis of criminal justice policy on incapacitation of felony offenders has ironically opened up a window of opportunity for the expansion of alternatives to incarceration, including community corrections. This study analyzes the organizational diffusion of state-mandated community corrections policy in Connecticut, Colorado, and Oregon. Specifically, we measure the degrees of implementation in each state and analyze the organizational conditions that contribute to successful implementation. Also, we present a model of transformative rationality that points to the theoretical underpinnings of successful implementation. It identifies organizational conditions that are necessary to maintain a commitment to the fundamental premises of policy while simultaneously encouraging constructive adaptation of the policy to local environments.

Exorcising the ghost of the politics-administration dichotomy: an institutional theory of administration policy making

This article takes implementation theory one critical step further. It argues that administrative policy making is a separate, distinguishable process, not a stage in or component of the legislative policy-making process. In addition, it argues that the institutional setting for policy making has a major influence on policy ideas, choices, and actions. Administrative agencies form a distinct institutional setting for policy politics, and setting influences policy outcomes. The implications of the institutional perspective for understanding policy making, policy analysis, and the legitimacy of public organizations are examined. The ghost of the politics-administration dichotomy haunts implementation theory. Although numerous scholars have declared the dichotomy dead,(1) administrative policy making is still seen as a component or step in the policy process that is dominated by elected officials. For example, Kelman recently examined the different institutional settings of policy making.(2) Elected official...

Chapter 4: Understanding the Policy Process

Summary The resolution of many community problems is linked to political processes. Public policies may both create the context for community problems and offer a strategy for solving them. Two frameworks for viewing community policymaking, the Rational and the Dynamic Interest Group Models, are discussed. A case study involving utility rates illustrates the policymaking process and its relationship to community functioning. Particular attention is paid to the behavior of policy actors, factors that may influence their actions, and the consequences of their behavior. The role of public policymaking in prevention is discussed.

Policy as Communication and the Naturalistic Study of the Use of Policy Research

This article explores several ideas about naturalistic studies of the uses of policy research. The central thesis of this article is that naturalistic research is well suited to several important questions about the use of policy analysis. Policy analysis is a form of organizational communication. In particular, it is a form of argumentation and story-telling that occurs within the existing processes of influence and sense making in or ganizations. This view of policy research calls for methods that are sensitive to the way actors ascribe meaning to analysis and to the historical and social context of the communication.

The ritual of reorganization in a public bureaucracy

Cultural aspects of complex organizations have recently captured the attention of scholars, yet empirical studies in this area remain rare. This paper explores the paradox that reorganizations are common in modern bureaucracies even though they have been found to have few instrumental effects. The present study of a state regulatory agency found that while reorganization had little instrumental consequence, it did provide the context for a power struggle between the administrative and occupational spheres of authority. In fact, reorganization proved to be a highly ritualized arena for significantly altering the agencys informal structure by replacing an entrenched dominant subculture. By examining the symbolic and ritualistic nature of this process, this paper looks beyond the ineffectual manifest functions of reorganization to uncover its power latent functions.

Reconsidering Charity Some Possible Negative Effects of Evaluation Research

This article argues that concepts useful in examining for-profit organizations are frequently misapplied in evaluating human service organizations. The assumption of most program evaluators that human service organizations are purposive rather than expressions of social values may encourage service organizations to become rigid, narrow, inefficient, and costly. It is suggested that evaluators should emphasize appreciation, avoid allocation and personnel decisions, be drawn from in-house staff, and judge more than outcomes. In addition, evaluators should use their experiences with social programs to help in developing a theory of human services as value-rational organizations.