ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies the aspects in which exploratory and experimental strategies differ from bureaucratic models of action; but it also demonstrates how they all can be reconciled: there is no strict cleavage between bureaucracy, exploration and experimentation but rather a continuum which unfolds between both ends of the spectrum. The pragmatist model predicts that intelligent actors choose social problems as a point of departure for what they do. The data discourage heroic pictures of philanthropic action in splendid isolation. They support arguments against single organizations as the unit of analysis if social impact and effectiveness of philanthropic organizations are the dependent variables. Organizational behavior was always triggered by the perception of concrete problems which arose out of practice in a particular societal field or subsystem. Problem-solving action is always triggered by the immediate perception of a problematic situation which is sometimes quite vague and which arises out of confrontation with practice, not as the outcome of formal strategy development processes.
