ABSTRACT
The bounds of responsibility for the problem of alcohol use have been extended as careers in the arena have increased; prevention approaches geared toward community involvement have been suggested, and to a lesser degree, implemented; pressure on the alcoholic beverage industries has been intensified. Much theorizing on organizations still suffers from the deficiencies analyzed in Gouldner's 1959 critique and updated in a more detailed account by Perrow. When organization theory follows the “rational” model, the emphasis is on logic and cognition, the focus on conscious planning, goal seeking and decision making. The extensive stretch-out in obtaining credentialing has been tied up with crosscuts of personalities and conflicting agendas of organizations. But it has also been marked by untoward timing, as exemplified in the effort to get a nationally funded certification board just when Congress had become exercised over NIAAA grants to voluntary organizations.
