Table of Contents

2000
 

Volume Five, Number 3

Single Articles
    

1. Radical Institutionalism And Public Administration: A Review Of Nils Brunsson's Contributions To Understanding Public Sector Organizations
   B. Douglas Skelley

   Public administration, whether a practical art or an academic discipline, is inherently ethnocentric. (1) History and political culture make contemporary organizations, and the institutions of which they are a part, peculiar to a nation's or a locality's specific conditions. Organizational theorists, however, must find models that fit more than one state's narrow experience if they want to generalize about organizations and their behaviors. New interpretations of the institutional approach may accommodate such differences. Nils Brunsson, a "Scandinavian institutionalist," has authored two books in English, The Irrational Organization and The Organization of Hypocrisy. With Johan P. Olsen, he has also edited and contributed to two others: The Reforming Organization and Organizing Organizations. Despite the accessibility of his ideas American public administration has largely ignored what Nils Brunsson has to say concerning public sector organizations, and this body of work remains unreviewed in public administration journals.
      

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2. MPA's View Federal Employment: Incentives and Impediments
   William C. Adams

   From a nationwide sample of 28 programs listed with the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, 477 first-year (mostly MPA) graduate students were surveyed. Federal civil service employment was found to be not nearly as appealing to these first-year students as expected. Federal jobs were a priority for only about one fourth of these students. Most viewed Federal jobs as offering attractive benefits and job security, but no other features were widely viewed as positive. The single most powerful predictor of affinity for Federal jobs was having the personal career priority of having "a real impact on national issues" and believing that "Federal jobs offer that opportunity." Also, compared to other MPA students, those students who were optimistic about job security and personal growth in Federal jobs were significantly more interested in such careers. Along with these opinion factors, the attraction to Federal jobs was stronger among those who have friends and relatives who work for the government. Converting student interest into actual workers confronted at least one serious obstacle. Even students who were eager to get a Federal job believed that doing so would probably be a prolonged and laborious process.

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3. NAFTA and American Organizational Behavior
   William P. Egan

   This is a conceptual article based on secondary data sources on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trilateral free trade agreement enacted in 1994 between the countries of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, that has had a profound effect on American organizational behavior. Surging trade deficits and the government certified loss of good paying jobs have been the economic downfall. In addition, attitudes and assumptions that American managers are making in deciding to ship jobs south are analyzed in light of organizational behavior. Pulling upon notable organizational behaviorist and their historical studies, we can determine that certain organizational assumptions about worker needs as remaining at a low level. The flaws inherent in these organizational systems are a lack of communication, and management's overall assumptions about the needs and motivations of its workforce. This shortsightedness does not consider the panoply of options available to take advantage of new markets, while embracing the American workforce. My recommended alternative is for a paradigm shift towards a more inclusive management style, with a long-term focus on the internal state of the organization through communication and ownership.

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