Overview

This monumental study provides an innovative and powerful means for understanding institutions by applying problem solving theory to the creation and elaboration of formal organizational rules and procedures. Based on a meticulously researched historical analysis of the U.S. Navy s officer personnel system from its beginnings to 1941, the book is informed by developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, operations research, and management science. It also offers important insights into the development of the American administrative state, highlighting broader societal conflicts over equity, efficiency, and economy. Considering the Navy s personnel system as an institution, the book shows that changes in that system resulted from a long-term process of institutional design, in which formal rules and procedures are established and elaborated. Institutional design is here understood as a problem-solving process comprising day-to-day efforts of many decision makers to resolve the difficulties that block completion of their tasks. The officer personnel system is treated as a problem of organized complexity, with many components interacting in systematic, intricate ways, its structure usually imperfectly understood by the participants. Consequently, much problem solving entails decomposing the larger problem into smaller, more manageable components, closing open constraints, and balancing competing value premises.

Full Product Details

Author:   Donald Chisholm
Publisher:   Stanford University Press
Imprint:   Stanford University Press
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 17.80cm , Height: 4.80cm , Length: 25.40cm
Weight:   1.751kg
ISBN:  

9780804735254

ISBN 10:   0804735255
Pages:   277
Publication Date:   01 April 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Preface; Tables; Illustrations; Part I. Early Personnel Reformers: 1. Introduction; 2. Questions and methods; 3. From expedience to permanence, 1793-1801; 4. Economy on their mind, 1802-10; 5. Winds of change, 1811-21; 6. Planning without action, 1822-28; 7. Some useless suckers, 1829-36; 8. Movement toward rationalization, 1837-44; Part II. The 1855 Naval Efficiency Board: 9. Initiatives and proposals, 1845-52; 10. The Lean and slippered pantaloon of old age, 1853-55; 11. Aftermath of the naval efficiency board, 1856-60; Part III. Civil War Protagonists: 12. The Union torn asunder, 1861-62; 13. The rebellion drags on, 1863-65; Part IV. Reformers and Reactionaries: 14. Back to the doldrums, 1866-69; 15. Hard times, 1870-80; 16. Slowly under way, 1881-88; 17. Advance and promise, 1889-94; 18. Lie warring creeds; 19. Everyone gets into the act, 1895-99; 20. Scarcity and humps, 1900-1904; Part V. Insurgents and progressives: 21. A profusion of alternatives, 1905-1908; 22. Equity's last gasp, 1909-12; 23. Efficiency triumphant, 1913-16; 24. Mobilization, demobilization, and working out the bugs, 1917-24; Part VI. Into The Modern Era: 25. Aviators and humps, 1925-32; 26. Sweet geraniums, 1933-38; 27. Amendments and mobilization, 1939-41; 28. Conclusions; Appendixes; Bibliography; Index.

Reviews

Donald Chisholm has provided us with an important book. It is the first comprehensive history of the development of the U.S. Navy' s officer personnel system. -- Naval War College Review

This lengthy, important, and almost unique book addresses U.S. Navy officer policy for the first two-thirds of the service's history. -- The Journal of Military History

Author Information

Donald Chisholm is Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Coordination Without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems.

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