FACTORS AFFECTING CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL GOAL STATEMENTS

This study is an attempt to examine and evaluate some of the factors that affect the characteristics, con-tent, and patterns of change of organizational goal statements. Eight cases, four national level organizations and one each of their local counterparts, supply the data for the study. Relevant variables applied in considering the goal statement histories of the sample organizations were selected from or suggested by case studies in the literature on organizations. Organizational "goals" constitute a controversial issue because of the disparity of views of what they are and concerning their implications for and relationship to organizational activities. While the conventional view holds that the very basis of organizational life is the deliberate or purposive establishment of groups directed toward the achievement of specific goals (Mouzelis, 1968:4), another proposes that goals, ends, or purposes simply emerge from or are determined by the events and activities that arise in the processes of organizational behavior (Thompson and Mc-Ewen, 1958). Weick (1969:1), for example, proposes that goals, as part of the "rationality" of organizations, involve "post hoc dissonance reduction." The several issues can be summarized by the question: Are goals the initial stimuli and persisting forces that lend continuity and directionality to an organization's history or are they simply ideological statements formulated in response to various internal and external pressures and events? In short "goals" may be treated as fundamental forces determining what organizations do or they may be viewed as simply part of the ideological rhetoric by which groups seek to justify, ex-plain, and account for what they do.

Author dc:creator

• Geis, Mary J.

Statement dc:rights

• This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1808/37764

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/37764