Organizational development in public administration - The correlation between the degree of institutionalization and effectiveness of change

Abstract

Some causes for failure of organizational changes attempted in Public Administration in Brazil are identified in this article, one of them being the indiscriminate employment of OD methods without taking into consideration the different types of organizations submitted to change.

Based on the ideas defended by Selznick, the writer esteems that some organizations are simply organizations - rational instruments in which little is invested in terms of human resources, that can be discarded without inconvenience. In organizations as such, efforts aiming at organizational development are often successful. Many public entities, however, became institutionalized, absorbing a set of values they respect as much as they respect themselves, not being moved only by the goods they produce or the services they render. Their members go through a process of their own identification with the organization, becoming dependents of it. The community values, respects and defends those persons.

The article is based also on studies ma de from 1977 to 1980 by Wesley Bjur, of the University of Southern California, in which he tries to identify characteristic features of under - or overinstitutionalized organizations and, likewise, of those which achieved an ideal degree of institutionalization.

The authoress reaches the conclusion that changes in institutionalized and that OD in such instances is not a useful tool, since it was conceived to have an action upon organizations, not upon institutions.

It is possible, she thinks, that OD be transformed into an agent for maintenance of the status quo, through achievement of little changes, incapable of affecting the institution's intrinsic character. In some cases, it contributes to an enhanvery dangerous and risky, because to de-institutionalize tends to be a painful process for an institution, destructive of its identity. That is why changes are normally undesirable and rejected by institutions.

OD is inadequate as an instrument to increase the degree of institutionalization, existing for that effect the methods of institution building, and the writer finally states the necessity of identifying the exact degree of institutionalization, both for administration and for implementation of changing processes in institutionalized organizations.