ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that all organizations must establish what Levine and White have termed a "domain". In their study of relationships among health agencies in a community, domain consists of claims which an organization stakes out for itself in terms of diseases covered, population served, and services rendered. Task environments of complex organizations turn out to be multifaceted or pluralistic, composed of several or many distinguishable others potentially relevant in establishing domain consensus. Using cooperation to gain power with respect to some element of the task environment, the organization must demonstrate its capacity to reduce uncertainty for that element, and must make a commitment to exchange that capacity. The domain claimed by an organization and recognized by its environment determines the points at which the organization is dependent, facing both constraints and contingencies. To attain any significant measure of self-control, the organization must manage its dependency.
