RUNAWAY BUREAUCRACY AND CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT: WHY REFORMS FAIL

Attempts to reign-in runaway regulatory bureaucracy fail because the bureaucracy has all the important resources. The bureaucracy also holds the upper hand in policy-making because Congress has neither the time nor inclination to effect legislative control and oversight. The authors examine the travails of the Federal Trade Commission during the 1970s to show the blurred distinction between bureaucratic autonomy and legislative control.     

ALTERNATIVES TO HIERARCHYTHE ROLE AND PERFORMANCE OF LATERAL STRUCTURES INSIDE BUREAUCRACY

Abstract: Lateral structures are the various cross linking arrangements which enable staff at similar levels to undertake project, policy or operational work in cooperation with officials in other divisions or departments. Their reliance on the expertise, judgment and commitment of their membership, and their comparative freedom from direct line control helps define these structures as an alternative to conventional hierarchies.
This study examines the commonly made but rarely tested claim that lateral structures are one of the main ingredients in the organisation's capacity to achieve high quality results in situations requiring superior levels of skill and efficiency (Mintzberg 1973; Galbraith 1977). The study provides an empirical assessment of a number of important aspects of these work arrangements and reports the results of an investigation into the performance of lateral structures in the Australian public sector between 1987 and 1989. These data indicate that lateral structures outperform conventional hierarchy in quality of results, capacity to manage internal conflict, time-management and technical competence. The research also identifies the importance of professional and political commitment in explanations of the success of these structures.     

TEACHING ETHICS, TEACHING ETHICALLY

A fair amount of attention has been given recently to teaching ethics and what manners of conduct are proper, especially in the public sector. This article examines not only the substance of teaching ethics, but also the process. The author contends that professors of ethics are in a difficult field because its scope is so broad. While different professions have different ethical codes and standards, it remains true that all fields have ethical considerations. The challenge for the ethics professor is to instill in students a basic understanding of proper conduct, realizing that some actions and decisions are better than others, while not attempting to appear morally omniscient.