Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A.

McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012

Course Readings
Most of our readings are articles and chapters, but I will also rely on a few books. I have always preferred assigning primary readings as opposed to using secondary compilations. I think primary texts retain more of their voice when assigned on their own, and that textbook compilations tend to massage the readings into the editor / authors argument. I want you to walk away with a toolkit of theories that you feel have some distinctiveness from one another. The four books I am assigning are as follows: Goldsmith, Stephen and William Eggers. 2004. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector. (or get full-text electronic copy available via Stanford library) Hula, Kevin W. 1999. Lobbying Together: Interest Group Coalitions in Legislative Politics. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Kingdon, J. W. 1995. Agendas, alternatives, and public policies, second edition. Longman. Kunda, Gideon. 1992. Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. In the ensuing pages, I will relate the readings and guiding questions of each week. I look forward to seeing and learning with you in class!

10

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 WEEKLY READINGS INTRODUCTION Week I. Organizational Elements and Organizing Narratives (73pp) Theory: (27pp) Scott, Richard. 2003 (5th ed). The Subject is Organizations, Chapter 1 (pp. 3-30) of Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, 5th Edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (Link) Case: (46pp) Metz, Mary Haywood. 1986. Adams Avenue School for Individually Guided Education. Chapter 4 (pp. 57-103) in Different by Design: The Context and Character of Three Magnet Schools. Routledge: New York. Guiding questions: How do these readings fit your experiences in organizations? Think about your experiences in educational, governmental, non-profit, and for-profit organizations. Think about the elements of these organizations their goals, technology (curriculum), social structure (roles and rules), participants, and salient environment. What seemed to matter most? Many organizations try to change or reform how organizing is done. Think about how various reforms treat and characterize organizations. What organizational elements are seen as central to a reform? What level / unit of analysis is of concern? What is the boundary to an organization and a reform effort? Who and what matters in the environment? What makes for a successful or unsuccessful reform? What kind of account would you give for an organization and its reforms? Would you characterize the organization as rational, natural, or open system? Example paper question: Consider Metz account of a magnet school and its organization. How do Scotts organizational elements and rational-natural-open models apply? Do they help you think more richly about the context?

11

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 PART I. ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION MAKING Week II Decisions by Rational and Rule-Based Procedures (98pp) Theory: (25pp) March, James G. 1999. "Understanding How Decisions Happen in Organizations." Chapter 2 in The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence, pp. 13-38. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Application: (29pp) Allison, Graham T. 1969. Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American Political Science Review 63, 3:689-718. Case: (44pp) Dorothy Shipps, The Businessmans Educator: Mayoral Takeover and Nontraditional Leadership in Chicago, in Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots, ed. Larry Cuban and Michael Usdan, pp. 16-34 (NY: Teachers College Press). Bryk, Tony. 2003. No Child Left Behind, Chicago-Style. In Peterson, P. W., and West, M. The Politics and Practice of School Accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, pp. 242-268. Guiding Questions: Many decisions were probably made in the organizations you belonged to. In your experience, how many of those decisions were based on a logic of consequence (means-end rational calculations) or a logic of appropriateness (principle-based decisions)? Who made decisions in these organizations, when, and in what situations? What went into making them? Was there a succession of interrelated decisions or even stages to organizational decision-making? Did actors learn and adapt from experience or forget and make the same mistakes? Compare the rational actor model to the organizational behavior model. What are the main tenets of each theory according to Allison? What organizational elements does each emphasize? Do they focus on different units of analysis? What consequences and preferences matter? What rules, identities, or values matter? How do the rational actor model and the organizational behavior model apply to the Chicago cases? Who is doing the decision-making? What influences the decision process? Are options weighed? What occurs and what does not? What theory would take a lot of extra data, a different perspective, etc, to have a better hold? As a manager, how would you use rational actor and organizational behavior models to successfully manage an organization? What is the danger of using only these models? Example Paper Question: Apply the rational actor model and/or the organizational behavior model to one (or both) of the Chicago reform cases OR compare and contrast the applicability of the two theories using the Chicago case(s). Note their strengths and weaknesses.

12

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 Week III. Decisions by Dominant Coalitions (124pp) Theory: (7pp) Scott, Richard. 2003 (5th ed). The Dominant Coalition (pp. 296-303) of Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, 5th Edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Application (Allison from last week): (104pp) Hula, Kevin W. 1999. Lobbying Together: Interest Group Coalitions in Legislative Politics. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press (chapters 1-5, 7, and 9 [pp.1-77, 93-107, 122-135]). Allison, Graham T. 1969. Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American Political Science Review 63, 3:689-718 review 3rd model from last time. Case: (13pp) Quinn, Rand. 2005. The Politics of School Vouchers: Analyzing the Milwaukee Parental Choice Plan. Stanford University School of Education Case. Witte, John. 1999. The Milwaukee Voucher Experiment: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Phi Delta Kappan, September: 59-64. Hurricane Katrina -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina Guiding questions: Compare the organizational behavior model to the governmental politics / coalition model. Apply them to the Chicago, Milwaukee, and Hula cases (esp. education lobbying). How can a coalition form when multiple actors have inconsistent preferences and identities? How is agreement even tenuously accomplished? Is school and non-profit governance the result of strange bedfellows? What about home-schooling advocates (secular and fundamentalist groups) and voucher programs (Milwaukees African American community and Republican politicians)? Can coalitions have extended lives? If you are a manager of a coalition, what can you do to manage it successfully?

Example Paper Question: Use the coalition/conflict approach to analyze the Milwaukee case or one like it. Be critical and discuss the strengths and weaknesses afforded by this theoretical perspective in elucidating the case.

13

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 Week IV. Decisions by Organized Anarchies (144pp) Theory & Application: (144pp) Kingdon, J. W. 1995. Agendas, alternatives, and public policies, second edition. Chapter 4-8 (pp. 71-195 [Chapter 9 (pp. 196-209) is optional, but recommended]). Longman. Birnbaum, Robert. 1989. The Latent Organizational Functions of the Academic Senate: Why Senates Do Not Work But Will Not Go Away? Journal of Higher Education 60 (July/August) 4: 423-443. Case (same as last week): (0pp) Quinn, Rand. 2005. The Politics of School Vouchers: Analyzing the Milwaukee Parental Choice Plan. Stanford University School of Education Case. Witte, John. 1999. The Milwaukee Voucher Experiment: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Phi Delta Kappan, September: 59-64. Guiding Questions: Is Garbage-Can Theory merely a descriptive theory or can it be used to improve management? How can you better manage in a world of organized anarchies? Can we take Kingdons argument and better understand why certain issues in education are more salient to policy makers than others? What would we need to know to apply Kingdons model? Reflect on all the issues, policies, and shifting participants shaping educational policy at the national level. Which ones have languished? Which have reached the public agenda only briefly? Which remain there or arise repeatedly? Who and what make them salient or ignored? From your experience which actors and what meetings serve to establish the education policy agenda is it the bureaucrats, the elected officials, or the lobbyists? Is it a yearly meeting, an unscheduled crisis, or an election issue? What other issue streams compete and push educational policy issues off the legislative radar? How are faculty senates much like an organized anarchy? Can we apply Garbage-Can Theory to the Milwaukee Voucher case? Whats missing? What kinds of things do we need to know in order to apply it? How can managers get issues heard and decided upon in these circumstances? Paper Question: How does GCT apply to the Milwaukee choice plan? Where does it find support? What other information is needed? What does it suggest about how the choice plan could be managed? Or select another case of policy-making where coalitions arise. Apply the theory critically, identifying its limits and strengths.

14

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 Week V. Organizational Learning and Intelligence (98pp) Theory: (55pp) Brown, John Seely and Paul Duguid. 2000. Practice Makes Process, and Learning in Theory and Practice. Chapters 4-5 (pp. 91-146 [and endnotes appended]) in The Social Life of Information. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Applications: (43pp) Leithwood, Kenneth and Karen S. Louis. 1998. Organizational Learning in Schools: An Introduction. Chapter 1 (pp. 1-8) in in Organizational Learning in Schools. Tokyo: Swets & Zeitlinger. Louis, Karen Seashore and Sharon D. Kruse. 1998. Creating Community in Reform: Images of Organizational Learning in Inner City Schools. Chapter 2 (pp. 17-46) in Organizational Learning in Schools. Tokyo: Swets & Zeitlinger. Lieberman, Ann. 2000. Networks as Learning Communities: Shaping the Future of Teacher Development. Journal of Teacher Education 51, 3: 221-227. Case: Read about the World of Warcraft and information on guilds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft http://www.wowwiki.com/Guild View the BigThink video of John Seely Brown discussing the World of Warcraft (this is also posted as a lecture on Coursera) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhuOzBS_O-M Guiding questions: How do organizations remember what works, identify problems, and then solve them? Where is organizational learning in an organization like a school? What would be considered improvement and signs of adaptation for the better? How are these adaptations transferred and diffused? How does Liebermans notion of learning communities try to relate to organizational learning? How does this compare to Liebermans case? How can culture facilitate learning as well? How does the organizational learning / adaptation perspective differ from others? What unit of analysis and organizational elements does it focus upon? Paper Question: Use the organizational learning approach and explain how it would apply to an organization like schools or the World of Warcraft. Be critical and consider how other theories may better apply.

15

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 VI. Organizational Cultures (~140pp) Theory: Martin, Joanne and Debra Meyerson. 1988. Organizational Cultures and the Denial, Channeling and Acknowledgment of Ambiguity. Chapter 6 (pp. 93-125) in Managing Ambiguity and Change, L. Pondy, R. Boland, and H. Thomas (Eds). Application: Kunda, Gideon. 1992. Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. (Read chapter 1, skim 2, and then read intro/concluding sections of chapters 3-5 as well as the text following every section heading within those chapters. We suggest this because the examples get redundant and we prefer you get a feel for how Kunda illustrates his points and establishes his claims. Skim chapter 6.) Case: (+10 pp, Metz is same reading from week 1) Diehl, David. 2006. The Mill Town Case and Small Schools Reform. Stanford University School of Education Case. Metz, Mary Haywood. 1986. Adams Avenue School for Individually Guided Education. Chapter 4 (pp. 57-103) in Different by Design: The Context and Character of Three Magnet Schools. Routledge: New York. Guiding Questions: In section, you will be asked to imagine how an organizational culture can be engineered and managed so as to serve the goals of schooling (imagine a classroom or school culture engineered in the Kunda-way). How could it be engineered at the Mill Town High School? How is culture and its interpretation relevant to the study and management of organizations? How do managers create and alter organizational cultures? How do members negotiate and adapt to them? What are examples of codified ideologies in schools? How do actors engage in presentation rituals that generate an organizational culture? How do individual persons relate to an organizations culture? Reflect on schools that appear to have a real mission, ideology, and set of ritual practices (e.g., private religious schools, Deborah Meiers school, etc) and imagine how Kundas concepts apply. Can we translate Kundas ideas so as to engineer positive school cultures? Why or why not? How does the organizational culture view speak to small school reform efforts? Paper Question: How can we use the culture approach to engineer a more productive organizational culture? Think about the cases and organizations that interest you how do we create a healthy, effective organizational culture that helps accomplish organizational goals?

16

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 PART II. ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS Week VII. Resource Dependencies (58pp) Theory: (27pp) Davis, Gerald F. and Walter W. Powell. 1992. Selection from Organization-Environment Relations (pp. 315-326). In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol 3 (2nd ed.). Eds. Marvin D. Dunnette and Leaetta M Hough. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists. (Focus on resource dependence parts and ignore references to transaction cost economics and population ecology [if such theories interests you, those pages/refs can be found in the reserves copy of the chapter])(reader). Scott, Richard. 2003 (5th ed). Resource Dependence (pp. 118-119) and Managing Task Environments (pp. 197-212) of Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, 5th Edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Case: (31pp) Sarah V. Barnes. 1999. A Lost Opportunity in American Education? The Proposal to Merge the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. American Journal of Education, Vol. 107, No. 4:289-320. Guiding questions: What are the resources in the Barnes example? What/who is dependent on whom for those resources? Think about Channel 1 and vending machine contractors coming into schools, what kind of compromises are made in such alliances? What about universities and big donors? Is there a potential for cooptation or unwilling compromises in these instances? How can reformers co-opt local participants without losing sight of the mission/goals? Isnt that something the public sector is doing with philanthropic organizations (Gates) and non-governmental organizations? How do resource dependence relations play a role in all this? How does a manager behave if they believe resource dependence is key to organizational survival and success? Can you imagine how and why school districts can merge? Why would schools merge and how would that alleviate interdependence? Paper Question: Use resource dependence theory to explain the University of Chicago and Northwestern case. What does it help explain? Where does it fail to hold? Would other theories we have covered apply better? Where would successful management have focused in the Barnes case? Or select a case that interests you and apply resource dependence theory to it in a critical fashion.

17

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 VIII. Network Models of Organizing (145pp) Theory: (7pp) Davis, Gerald F. and Walter W. Powell. 1992. Selection from Organization-Environment Relations (pp. 334-341). In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol 3 (2nd ed.). Eds. Marvin D. Dunnette and Leaetta M Hough. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists. (Focus on network approaches to interorganizational relations and ignore references to transaction cost economics and population ecology [if such theories interests you, those pages/refs can be found in the reserves copy of the chapter])(reader). Application: (118pp) Stephen Goldsmith and William Eggers. 2004. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector (read Ch.1-5 or pp. 3-119, 156, 178]). Case: (20pp) Smith, Andrew K. and Priscilla Wohlstetter, 2001. Reform Through School Networks: A New Kind of Authority and Accountability. Educational Policy 15, 4:499-519. Guiding Questions: How does the network form of organization relate to resource-dependency arguments? Whats the difference between network forms of organization, hierarchical arrangements, and markets? What are the coordination problems of network forms of organization, especially within and between schools? How can we use networks to diffuse technologies (or new curricula) and make them stick? How do we manage network forms of organization? Paper Question: Consider how a network form of organizing can help elaborate what Lieberman is trying to accomplish. What else could be said about the case? Extrapolate and discuss what kind of data would help establish a network form of teacher community. Or select a case that interests you and answer the same questions above.

18

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 Week IX. Institutional Perspective (63pp) Theory: (20pp) Davis, Gerald F. and Walter W. Powell. 1992. A selection from Organization-Environment Relations (pp. 342, 354-365). In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol 3 (2nd ed.). Eds. Marvin D. Dunnette and Leaetta M Hough. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists. (Focus on institutional perspectives discussion and ignore references to transaction cost economics [if such theories interests you, those pages/refs can be found in the reserves copy of the chapter]). Scott, Richard. 2003 (5th ed). Institutional Theory (pp. 119-120) and Managing Institutional Environments (pp. 213-220) of Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, 5th Edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Applications: (27pp) Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. [1978] 2004. The Structure of Educational Organizations. Pp. 201-212 in Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education. Eds. Jeanne Ballantine and Joan Spade. Canada: Wadsworth. Metz, Mary Haywood. 1989. Real School: A Universal Drama Amid Disparate Experience. Politics of Education Association Yearbook 1989:75-91. Case: (16pp) Intelligent Design Rears its Head. The Economist, July 28, 2005. Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive. New York Times, August 21, 2005. Bai, Matt. The Framing Wars. NY Times Magazine, July 17, 2005 (pp. 1-8). Guiding Questions: How can rationalization in the environment influence organizations? What does it mean for an organization to have institutional legitimacy? How does neo-institutional theory differ from cultural explanations? Are educational organizations following dynamics of resource dependence or neo-institutional theory? Think about universities, high schools, and then the recent development of charters, vouchers, and schools within schools. What kind of research would establish one theory over another? How do you manage an organization if environmental myths are what matter most? Paper Question: How can we use neo-institutional theory to explain the intelligent design debates? What does it help elaborate? What is missing? Or - compare the culture approach to the neo-institutional approach in discussing the intelligent design debate. Which seems more applicable? What are their key differences?

19

Organizational Analysis Reading List Daniel A. McFarland Stanford/Coursera Fall 2012 Week X. Course Summary (38pp) Theory: (12pp) Davis, Gerald F. and Walter W. Powell. 1992. A selection from Organization-Environment Relations (pp. 342-354). In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol 3 (2nd ed.). Eds. Marvin D. Dunnette and Leaetta M Hough. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists.(reader) Application / Case: (26pp) Renzulli, Linda. 2005. "Organizational Environments and the Emergence of Charter Schools in the United States." Sociology of Education 78: 1-26. (nice demonstration of how multiple theories can be brought to bear on a case) Guiding questions: Is this a case best described by resource dependence, organizational culture, neoinstitutional theory, or population ecology? Assuming cases can be explained by a variety of theories, how do you assess which applies or not, and which does a better job explaining the observed phenomena? Reflect back on these and the applications for discussion section. (1) Magnet school reform (Metz) (2) Chicago public school reforms (Bryk, Shipps) (3) Milwaukee parental choice plan (Quinn, Witte) (4) Learning community reforms (Lieberman) (5) University of Chicago Northwestern merger effort (Barnes) (6) Charter school networks (Smith & Wohlstetter) (7) Intelligent design and teaching of evolution debate (NY Times) (8) The U.S. charter school movement Does each theory apply to certain levels of analysis far better than others? When would we want to focus on one level of analysis over another? Do these theories apply to certain types of organizations more than others (sector)? Do they concern different stages of organizing better than others? Can we integrate them in our explanations of multi-level, multi-staged organizational phenomena? Which narratives would act as an umbrella / connector for these types of explanations? How can a manager know when to pay attention to one view over another?

20