Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 5

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Organizational Analysis

415 classificações

Stanford University

Organizational Analysis

415 classificações

In this introductory, self-paced course, you will learn multiple theories of organizational behavior and apply them to actual cases of organizational change. Organizations are groups whose members coordinate their behaviors in order to accomplish a shared goal. They can be found nearly everywhere in today’s society: universities, start-ups, classrooms, hospitals, non-profits, government bureaus, corporations, restaurants, grocery stores, and professional associations are some of many examples of organizations. Organizations are as varied and complex as they are ubiquitous: they differ in size and internal structure; they can entail a multiplicity of goals and tasks (some of which are planned and others unplanned!); they are made up of individuals whose goals and motivations may differ from those of the group; and they must interact with other organizations and deal with environmental constraints in order to be successful. This complexity frequently results in a myriad of problems for organizational participants and the organization’s survival. In this course, we will use organizational theories to systematically analyze how an organization operates and can best be managed. Organizational theories highlight certain features of an organization’s structure and environment, as well as its processes of negotiation, production, and change. Each provides a lens for interpreting novel organizational situations and developing a sense for how individual and group behaviors are organized. Theories are valuable for the analyst and manager because most organizational problems are unique to the circumstances and cannot be solved by simple rules of thumb. Armed with a toolset of organizational theories, you will be able to systematically identify important features of an organization and the events transforming it; choose a theoretical framework most applicable to the observed mode of organizing; and use that theory to determine which actions will best redirect the organization in desired directions. In sum, the course has three goals: to become familiar with a series of real-world organizational phenomena; to learn different theoretical perspectives that can elucidate these phenomena; and to apply these different ways of “seeing” and managing organizations to cases. In such a fashion, the course is designed to actively bridge theory and practice, exposing students to a variety of conceptual tools and ways to negotiate novel situations.

Na lição

Module 10 - Population Ecology and Course Summary

In this module, we conclude our study of organizations as open systems whose survival and success depends on their reaction to the environment. We introduce a 10th and final theory called “Population Ecology”. There is a long history of work that applies biological and natural selection metaphors to organizations (Scott 2003:117; Davis and Powell 1992:342-354), let alone to the study of society.

Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 1 10:58

Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 2 10:36

Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 3 18:20

Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 4 9:52

Lecture 24 - Population Ecology - Part 5 6:17

Lecture 25 - Course Summary - Part 1 14:46

Lecture 25 - Course Summary - Part 2 14:45

Lecture 25 - Course Summary - Part 3 17:25

Lecture 25 - Course Summary - Part 4 14:15

Conheça os instrutores

Daniel A. McFarland
Professor
Education, Sociology, and Organizational Behavior

We've described the theory and highlighted some potential trouble spots.

Let's consider an application.

I asked you to read Linda Renzulli's work because she does an actual

empirical study of charter schools and when they are proposed.

In effect, the question that she asked focuses on how this new organizational

form of schooling, charter schools, has come about and by what factors?

I think it's a nice piece because it compares several open system

theories about organizational environments like resource dependence,

neoinstitutional theory, and population ecology.

So it's kind of a neat way to compare and contrast and see how people study these

theories in tandem when it comes to a phenomenon like her specific question,

which was why have charter school applications grown?

Now if you drive by a charter school,

there's really nothing specially kind of noticeable about them.

They look like a typical school.

But for those of you who may not know, charter schools

in the United States are publicly funded primary and secondary schools, and

they're not subject to the same rules and regulations as typical public schools.

They're expected to produce certain results as laid out in their charter,

or their mission.

And they are attended by choice as an alternative to typical or

traditional public schools.

Most charters are overprescribed, so attendance is often allotted by a lottery.

And the charter schools frequently vary, and this means that most of them in their

charter offer a curriculum that either specializes in a particular field, say,

mathematics and science or arts and music or even vocation.

Others actually offer a general curriculum and attempt to be more efficient, cost

effective and outperform the usual public school so that's their charter instead.

All of these charters, though, are open to inspection and

accountability throughtesting.

So they're kind of different in that sense.

So again in the Renzulli case,

she wants to know what theory explains the growth in charter school applications.

Now to have a charter you have to apply.

You have to propose it to school districts and states, right.

And in a way her answer helps the future educational entrepreneur know where he or

she should consider opening a new charter school.

So it's kind of a substantive question for

a solid subsection of the people currently taking this course.

Now to answer the questions, she assesses resource dependence theory,

neoinstitutional theory and population ecology arguments, and she renders

her analysis kind of a horse race between proxy characteristics of each theory.

Now for resource dependence theory she tests whether they arise in districts that

give enough money to open a charter school.

And she measures this by the instructional expenditure per student that a new

charter would get if it opened, right, like an operating budget.

For neoinstitutional theory, she assesses whether there are social and

political pressures to open a charter school and

she measures this by legislative union pressures like

stronger versus weaker legislation in the state concerning charter schools.

Or age of founding legislation, whether the founding of a charter law within

a state and what year, how early, and the number of administrators in

a district that are charter school administrators, right.

So that's kind of legitimacy concerns.

For population ecology, she looks at local competition, so

this is a proxy of density dependence and the number of district charters, right.

She also looks at niche promotion which she measures as the number of

private secular schools since those will promote the demand for

charter schools for poor students, right.

So she kind of has all these various things that she can capture for

each theory, and then she kind of runs these regressions on them.

And her results suggest that educational organizational environments

are indeed key in the process of generating charter schools.

She finds strong evidence for population ecologies so she finds that non-religious

private schools increase the submission of charter school applications so

niche promotion is occurring.

And she also finds that the density of extant charter schools in local districts

has an effect.

So with saturation there's a decrease in the submission of applications.

So if there's competition, charter schools don't open.

She also finds some evidence for neoinstitutionalism and

resource dependence.

So she finds things like local political environments,

solid funding and legislative support help,

too, in terms of the formation or the application for a new charter.

So given all that, you're an educational entrepreneur.

Where are you going to open a charter school?

So this is kind of like you considering as a manager of open systems

kind of forecasting where to kind of plant your new organization.

Now the results here suggest that you should open it up in a state with lots of

charters, in a neighborhood with many secular private schools and

in a district with few competitors.

So there aren't many Catholic schools, say, when tuition's low and

they might compete with you.

And then make sure that the district is top heavy with administrators and that

laws are in place to support charters and that the student expenditures are high.

So I think all of these characteristics that you get from this paper

really suggest kind of a more system level or population level kind of

understanding of where an entrepreneur can begin a business,

which I think is a very important consideration in terms of management.

That it's not all internal kinds of operations and adaptations,

that it's often where you're situated and

when, which greatly matters in terms of your business's success.

And I think this set of theories affords us a series of means to consider that.

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