Budgeting for Federal Capital

This article examines the issues involved in federal investment budgeting and planning for the acquisition of federally-owned assets. It describes the unique role of the federal government and examines the different issues and reforms prompted by differing types of capital and investment sponsored at the federal level. It suggests that meaningful changes can be instituted in our budgeting practices that can make a difference for our budgetary choices without adopting a full-scale capital budget. It also presents a framework for improving federal agency capital decision making based on a study of practices used by leading state and local and private sector organizations. The article is based on testimony delivered before the President's Commission to Study Capital Budgeting.     

Invisible decisive coalitions in large hierarchies

This paper examines the extent to which organizational hierarchies are democratic or (in the more usual language of administrative studies) participative, in the sense that the views of a large proportion of organizational membership are taken into account when an organizational choice is made. We view organizations as making choices in a “bottom-up” manner: subordinates recommend options to their superior, and if subordinates are in sufficient agreement their superior accepts their advice. We prove that as the number of levels in the hierarchy increases, organizational choices can be dominated by a smaller and smaller proportion of the total organizational membership. In the limit, a vanishing small proportion of the membership can dominate policymaking.     

Books in review

Among his forthcoming books are Psychology and Tortureand Psychology and Social Policy (edited with P.E. Tetlock).     

Books in review

He is an active Organization Development consultant, and has contributed some three hundred research pieces to several forums. His latest books are High Performance and Human Costs;and a reissued version of Men, Management, and Moralityin Transaction’s Classics in Social Science Series.     

Strategic planning for state enterprise performance in Africa: Public versus private options

This article presents methodologies to assist government officials in various African countries who have to deal with ill-defined policy problems arising out of perceived performance shortcomings on the part of state enterprises. It reviews the historical role and record of state enterprise in African economies, the assumptions and major arguments of the ‘privatization option’ and the major forms in which the latter may be carried out. In a situation where debate has tended at times to generate more heat than light, the approach is a pragmatic one, involving careful review of all policy alternatives, including public enterprise rehabilitation and a step by step application of privatisation feasibility analysis in cases where public enterprise rehabilitation proves unviable.