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An Analysis of Macro Models of Organizations

The Goal and Political Models

University of Rhode Island

Macro theories of organizations generally rely on the concept of the goal as the mechanism that gives direction and achieves solidarity of organizational action. In recent years, research and theory building has begun to recognize the importance of such concepts as resource dependence, power, and conflict and to incorporate them into open systems models of organizations. While these open systems models do allow for change in organizational direction, they generally hold to the contention that environmental influence on organizational direction is achieved through a goal-setting process. Likewise, the concepts of power and conflict are incorporated into a goal model. An alternative model, termed the political model, is presented that allows for system openness at ad levels of an organization and does not rely on the concept of the goal in explaining direction or solidarity. Points of conflict between the goal model and the political are discussed along with some of the implications of adopting a political perspective in studying organizational behavior.

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