Pegasus: Dee Hock Keynote LO10940

Durval Muniz de Castro (durval@ia.cti.br)
Mon, 11 Nov 1996 09:29:51 -0800

Replying to LO10899 --

Benjamin B. Compton wrote:

> What I'm getting from this Durval's message is that he believes the
> "instutions" of an organization are really synonymous with the
> organization's cultural norms. Is this a correct interpretation?

I understand "institution" has two different meanings. The first is a
synonym of organization and the second is the organization's norms and
rules. Norms and rules, specially when they are written, have a tendency
to remain unchanged while the organization needs to change. Some of the
rules reflect values, and these may remain unchanged for a long time.
Other rules are based on policies, environmental contingencies which may
change very often. We may order the rules that guide the organization in a
hierarchy, with the most stable, basic ones, at the top and the more
flexible and less durable at the bottom. These are the ones that have to
be reviewed and may restrict the organization's ingenuity.

Sociologist Robert Merton remarked that these policy rules are the ones
most often applied in the everyday life of bureaucratic organizations.
Thus, they are very well learned, sometimes in detriment of the higher
order norms, which deal with more general issues. Thus, when the policies
become incompatible with the organization's values, bureaucracies often
forget the vales and stick to the policies. This is why it is so important
to keep the values alive!

> I'm strongly influenced by my political background where, in the US, we
> talk about "our freedom and those institutions that protect it." In this
> sense, I think about the Congress, Supreme Court, and Office of the
> President and the checks and balances these three branches on the
> government create in an effort to protect the freedom of the people. But,
> I can also make room for the "bill of rights" in my definition of US
> institutions, which would better fit what I hear Durval saying.

The "bill of rights" is an institution in the sense of rules, as well as
the Constitution. Other laws of lesser importance are also institutions.
The Congress, Supreme Court, and Office of the President are institutions
in the sense of organizations. These are special organizations, charged
with the responsibility to keep the basic values of the society alive and
not allow lesser order policies to prevail over them.

I believe when Dee Hock said that institutions restrict ingenuity, he
didn't mean the basic institutions of society, which embody its values,
and are the main motivation to ingenuity and creative behavior. I believe
he was simply warning against the shortcomings of bureaucracy.

Durval

-- 
Durval Muniz de Castro
durval@ia.cti.br
Fundacao Centro Tecnologico para Informatica
http://www.ia.cti.br/
Campinas - Brasil
Phone: 55-19-2401011   Fax: 55-19-2402029
 

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