By ‘psychological limitations’ it is meant that organisations are com-
posed of individuals with limited knowledge and skills and imper-
fectly known values.
The limitations arising from multiple values are that organisations
face additional problems in determining values and objectives (com-
pared with individuals) because they are composed of individuals
with different values and objectives. Whilst this may be true of all
organisations, it is arguable that it is necessarily so in organisations
seeking to implement political policies on behalf of the whole
community and which may have been the subject of intense debate
between political parties, or which remain socially contested. For
instance, the British Child Support Agency has found itself torn
between rival demands from groups reflecting the interests of
deserted mothers and children, those representing fathers and second
families, and, not least, the demands of the Treasury that the agency
make a substantial reduction in the costs of social security.
By ‘factored problems and fractionated power’ is meant that the
division of problems amongst specialist departments helps to over-
come the first (psychological) problem but creates new ones. Sub-
units concerned with part of the problem treat it in isolation and
elevate their own sub-goals over those of the organisation as a whole,
whilst their leaders seek power and influence for themselves. In
Parkinson’s Law, Parkinson (1958) amusingly documents, for
instance, how the number of admirals in the British Navy increased
as the number of battleships declined, deriving the ‘law’ that organ-
isations grow irrespective of the amount of work they have to do.
Although organisations collectively possess much more infor-
mation on problems than individuals (through filing systems, com-
puter databases, etc.) they frequently fail to access the relevant
information at the right time. Thus they lose one of the major
strategic advantages they possess.
In order to achieve the cost benefits of ‘mass producing’ decisions,
organisations tend to economise on searching out alternatives in
making decisions. If a rule appears to apply, then it will be auto-
matically operated. Subordinates can always defend an action to their
superiors by referring to a rule made by those superiors. The more a
bureaucracy is criticised and needs to defend itself, the worse this
behaviour may get.
POLICIES 221