Gouldner's notion of "structural adaptation" and "indulgency pattern" refer to both selective

exercise of supervisory authority as well as non-enforcement of rules. Elucidate

CSM2015
Context: Gouldner in his book Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy studied bureaucratic conflict in a
Gypsum plant and said how bureaucracy is not uniformly potent, even within a single organization
and that there should be structural adaptation of formal rules based on the interest of
workers/employees and if required managers need to get into indulgency pattern with the
workers
to
offer
them
flexibility
and
win
their
co-operation.
Explanation:
Structural adaptation
Gouldner said that workers most likely do not have same interests as that of the management and
hence bureaucratic rules and regulations should be examined to see whether they aligned or
conflicted with the interest of workers in the organization. Based on this he gave the three types of
bureaucracies
i.e.
Mock,
Representative
and
Punishment.
> Mock was externally imposed and hence not in interest of either mgmt or workers.
> Representative both mgmt and workers are interested so followed by all.
> Punishment was enforced by one group over other and hence resulted in conflict. (Theory X)
So, managers need to understand to selectively exercise these three types of bureaucracies to
attract
maximum
commitment
from
workers.
Non-enforcement of rules
Gouldner observed that org harmony results from selective non-enforcement of bureaucratic rules.
Managers need to develop indulgency pattern with workers and allow them flexibility of nonenforcement of rules , office timings, tea breaks, informal relationship them and that is how the
trust between him and workers would increase leading to more co-operation from them. We see
clear imprint of Barnards emphasis on identifying power of informal org. and function of executive
to expand the zone of indifference. Folletts idea of power-with and integration can also be seen.
[265 words]
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Q. "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class
accent."- Prof. E. E. Schattschneider
Comment critically on the statement in the light of Policy Making process. 15 marks

[this is not an answer but just an indication of what all I would written]
> what he said about conflict and participation - (people should participate to be powerful and their
voice be heard, else the "strong upper-class accent" will hog the limelight and political agenda space)
and the common people will remain "semi sovereign" by being important only for select few
issues(hence
semi-sovereign
and
not
fully
sovereign) ..
> about privatization and socialization of conflict - how the dynamics plays around and
how mobilization of bias takes place

Since 15 marks (~250 words) and critical examine .... so will also mentioned that this
Schattschneider's iron triangle view was later disputed by sub-system theorists like Heclo(issue
networks) and Sabatier (advocacy frameworks) .. and also highlight role of media (if Ambani makes
some secret deal about how to price KG gas, its in newspaper all over) !
Then finally praise the guy and say that .. Schattschneider's role in policy making was pathbreaking ..
he was the first .. who through his book "The semi sovereign people" .. in which he made this
famous statement about "heavenly chorus" .. said how conflict is exploited to favor some to get into
the political agenda (and finally policy outcomes) and others ignored .. so he in a way laid the
foundation stone for further studies of agenda setting in policy making .. which was explored in
detail later by people like Cohen/Olsen (garbage can), Kingdon(three streams) , B&J (punctuated
equilibrium) etc