ABSTRACT
Decision making in highly organized settings is characteristic for contemporary society, but it is only in the past few decades that earlier concerns with the consequences of the organizational revolution have subsided. The decline of individualism was feared by Nietzsche (late nineteenth century) and by Ayn Rand ( 1930s-1960s ). Organization literature of the 1950s and 1960s paid equally serious attention to the battle of the individual against the organization. In his very popular (1956) book William Whyte, who was editor of Fortune at that time, described the organization man as a noncreative puppet who depended upon supervisors. He met with opposition from Lloyd Warner, a social research professor from Michigan State, who argued that the autonomous man and organization were not at all at odds with each other. At the end of his Ford Distinguished Lecture Series, Warner described what was happening in society:
This quotation is interesting because Warner recognizes that local communities no longer operate in isolation, and it also shows an early recognition of globalization. I disagree, however, with the observation that primary, face-toface interaction is growing across the nation. Interaction has grown, but as
the indirect interaction of the imagined communities through the various interest groups. Society increasingly relies on indirect, written, and standardized types of interaction (formal meetings, faxes, teleconferences, e-mail, etc.). Increased indirect interaction between various communities has raised the awareness of differences in the quantity and quality of public services. Together with a declining number of collective services provided by private associations, the _demand for more public services means that nowadays, public officeholders have to juggle more varying demands than any of their predecessors. As a consequence, much attention has been given to the improvement of the organizational structure and functioning of the public sector. Through reforms of organizational structure and through the standardization of procedures, public officeholders attempt to make sure that this juggling proceeds in a legitimate manner.
