THE SUBJECTIVE SIDE OF ENTERPRISE: Organizational Dimensions and Decision Structures Steven R. Brown Kent State University ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Presented at a panel on "Intensive Methods for the Policy Sci- ences," Fifth Policy Sciences Summer Institute and Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, University of Texas at Austin, October 30-November 1, 1986. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Aspects of Harold Lasswell's Science Harold Lasswell's Psychopathology and Politics (1930/1986) is best re- membered for its contribution to the psychology of politics--which it mainly is not--but its primary thrust is methodological in the broadest sense (Note 1), and very much in tune with twentieth century develop- ments. It is, first and foremost, perspectival in nature: "...every fact is defined from the point of view of an observer, and...the problem is to specify as definitely as possible the angle of observation of the recorder" (p. 238). Second, it is functional-operational: We associ- ate "statesman" with a specific institutional setting (government), for example, but from a functional standpoint many "business men" are as concerned as statesmen with the public good. This is a reminder to stick close to operations rather than to logical categories, and Lasswell cites P.W. Bridgman in this regard (p. 251n). Third, it is contextual in orientation: "The task of the hour is the development of a realistic analysis of the political in relation to the social process" (p. 46). Like everything else, politics occurs in a field, in this case a social field. Fourth, it is interbehavioral in the sense that meas- urement includes an account of "the history of the relations of the rater and the rated" (p. 238). In sum, the Psychopathology has Einstein written all over it, almost as indelibly as Freud. And this is even more the case in Lasswell's writings three decades later. Aside from "awareness," as he says in his The Future of Poli- tical Science (Lasswell, 1964), "a distinguishing mark of subjective events...is referentiality" (p. 221). In this latter work, Lasswell suggests a cosmic role for subjectivity when he invites us to suppose that the universe of events "is an expression of one fundamental energy which we shall designate 'duration'" (p. 222) and which is destined to become void. How might we interfere with this eventuality, he asks, so as to avert or at least postpone it? One possible solution would be to divide duration against itself, and the circuiting of events through the subjectivities of higher forms of life is a means toward this achieve- ment; i.e., human problem solving guides the processes of evolution, thereby permitting one part of nature (subjectivity) to guide the re- mainder in an effort to defer dissipation into entropic voidness. In this way, the clarification of goals and the invention of alternatives through specification of trends, conditions, and projections are every bit as consequential as the most recent "artificial" satellite. Each is an example of the purposive tampering with time, with "decision struc- tures" serving to trap duration energies for more effective void- deferring integrations. Stephenson (in press) notes that Lasswell was relying in part on Lord Lindemann's (1932) discussion of quantum theory, and that Lasswell's decision structures are equivalent to the operant factors of Q methodology, which is also quantum-theoretical at its foundations (Stephenson, 1983). Q factors are indeterminant, their number and na- ture being unspecifiable in advance; moreover, they represent complemen- tary states of subjectivity which are comparable to the complementary energy states of physics. Self referentiality could therefore have been as profound for Lasswell, according to Stephenson, as it is for Q meth- odology; i.e., within a quantum-theoretical framework. Subjective Dimensions of Organization: Variables vs. Operants The preceding can perhaps be clarified somewhat by contrasting it with Miller and Friesen's (1984) quantum view, that in organizations "there are integral interdependencies among many variables" (p. 266), and that these variable configurations are predictively useful. Miller and Friesen utilize Q factor analysis (cf. Miller, 1978), but with respect to variable configurations and predictability; their reference to quan- tum theory is therefore analogical only, for the quantum domain is char- acterized by its indeterminacy, not its predictability; nor is it concerned with variables, but with states. Burt (1958), too, was im- pressed by the "many striking analogies" between factor analysis and microphysics (Note 2), but like Miller and Friesen, he thought in terms of variable patterns; i.e., in terms of entities with known character- istics and pre-established meanings rather than in terms akin to states of matter and energy. Miller and Friesen, no less than Burt, are inter- ested in variables in states. In Q methodology, by way of contrast, "mind" and subjectivity (rather than variables) are involved, and the indeterminant Q factors which emerge are measures of the state of the system. Moreover, meaning in Q does not precede behavior; rather, as is the case in quantum physics, meaning and measurement are inextricably intertwined, the former only emerging in the course of the latter. Power, Skill, and Affection For illustrative purposes, consider the case of an emergency ser- vices department (primarily a crisis phoneline) in a county mental health center and the organizational turmoil its members were experienc- ing consequent upon the evolution of its mission and the professionalization of its service delivery (Note 3). Depth interviews with paraprofessional volunteers concerning their personal needs in and perceptions of the organization, the impact of changes, and work experi- ences netted a variety of comments such as the following: o My sense of ownership in the organization is in terms of the work we do in the phoneroom, not in the organization itself. o Townhall is a business now primarily. A sense of community has been sacrificed for efficiency. o It's not the changes so much--most of the changes I'd proba- bly be in favor of anyway. It's the way the changes have been brought about. I don't like the idea of change being imposed. This collection of statements, numbering in the hundreds, is referred to as a concourse. These are the self-referential particles of thought to which meaning accretes during the process of measurement (Note 4), and the factors which emerge refer to the "states of mind" existent in the agency at the time the appraisal was undertaken. Of the 28 Q sorts obtained, factor analysis revealed three distinct responses. Factor scores indicated factor I to represent a highly posi- tive attitude, as the following two statements illustrate (scores in brackets are for factors I, II, and III, respectively): [+5 -4 -1] The growth I've received through training and work- ing here has been very important in my own personal development, and even talking to people on the phones has been secondary. The most important thing has been working with other people. [+4 -4 -3] I've never felt uneasy about whomever I've had to work with in the phoneroom. There seems to be an instant bond among workers: I always feel comfortable there. Factor I is "the family group" in the sense that persons affiliated with this factor identify with and extend affection to others in the agency, and are quick to adopt and defend the agency ideology. Behaviorally, individuals in this group volunteer more hours per week than do partic- ipants in II and III. Factor II, by way of contrast, is wedded to the task of the agency rather than to the agency itself, or even to fellow volunteers, and this lack of attachment to other workers appears to be accompanied by a sense of personal uncertainty: [-4 +5 -3] I feel I was well trained, but I still feel nervous when I go in to answer the phones. So skillswise, I think I'm well prepared, but my confidence is still lagging. [-2 +3 -2] My sense of ownership in the organization is in terms of the work we do in the phoneroom, not in the organiza- tion itself. These are the "Samaritans" who are in the organization for whatever good they can do, and who, unlike factor I, are otherwise only mildly inter- ested in the agency per se. Factor II is composed almost exclusively of recently trained volunteers, hence the uncertainty regarding their de- gree of skills mastery. They are also older than those in factor I, with family and professional obligations to attend to, which helps ac- count for their lesser attachment to the agency. For factor II, volun- teering at the crisis center is an interlude in an otherwise busy week; for factor I, volunteering is an integral part of life. Persons comprising factor III are the most critical about recent changes in the agency, and, more than persons affiliated with factors I or II, appear to blame the administration: [ 0 -2 +5] It's not the changes so much--most of the changes I'd probably be in favor of anyway. It's the way the changes have been brought about. I don't like the idea of change being imposed. [-1 -1 +4] The administrators are very willing to listen to problems and complaints, but listening and doing something about it are two different things. Elsewhere in the factor array, factor III complains that the volunteers have lost their centrality in the agency, and have been replaced by paid staff, bureaucratic forms, and other organizational details. At the same time, these persons experience the greatest distance from fellow workers: [+4 +2 -3] I've always found it easier to talk about certain things in the phoneroom. The fact that someone is allowed in that room has always meant to me that I can trust that person more than if I'd met that same person outside. [-3 +3 +5] I've never really gotten into the kind of Townhall activities stuff. That's not why I'm here. Some people may be here to meet other people, but that's not one of my needs. The Loyalists, Samaritans, and Critics, as well as their combina- tions, represent not only different perspectives on the organization, but different feelings as well (Note 5). The Loyal volunteer, for exam- ple, has a feeling of comraderie which leads to--actually, is probably a consequence of--the willing and rapid internalization of the organiza- tional ideology based on an identification with other volunteers, and it is this feeling of loyalty (or affection, in Lasswellian terms) that factor I represents. Loyalty in this case is not a variable in the sense of a concept whose meaning and properties are known a priori, but the state of mind of the persons who comprise factor I and whose Q- sorting behavior produced the factor scores reported above. It is therefore purely operational in nature, yet of the highest importance in an organization--or group or culture for that matter. In the instant case, it serves to account for why, two years after the above study, a greater proportion of factor I persons remained active in the agency than was the case for factors II and III (chi square(1)=5.84, p<.05). It also helps explain the greater sense of skill mastery claimed by fac- tor I (supra): Given the security which friendships engender, persons in factor I are in the best position to risk experimenting with those interpersonal strategies which lead to skill acquisition--hence the con- nection in this context of affection to skill, and, ultimately, of both of these to power, as persons with alternative feelings and skills de- part, leaving factor I in charge. Finally, the feeling of loyalty in factor I, and the ideology which it promotes, also accounts for the ac- rimony which surfaces when change is introduced: Change typically in- volves a certain changing of the guard as some are promoted and others not in order to fill vacant slots, and the promotion of former equals not only creates guilt among winners but also resentment among losers in organizations in which affection (rather than, say, fear or strength) is the glue primarily responsible for holding things together. Decision Structures Lasswell's claim for decision, as alluded to previously, was of cos- mic proportions, but the operant character of decision structures as found within organizations can be illustrated more modestly. The "prob- lem" in this case was posed to members of a university department of political science: "What steps might be taken to improve the graduate program in our department?" Responses were systematically generated through the use of nominal groups, and 58 viable suggestions were se- lected. Q sorts from 35 graduates and faculty resulted in seven fac- tors, of which only four will be briefly described. The first factor revealed a professional, discipline-centered stance, with policy recommendations such as the following gaining high factor scores: o Make efforts to attract more graduate students who obtained their undergraduate degrees elsewhere. o Provide more in-depth courses, as a balance against the more generalized survey courses. o Place more pressure on the faculty to do research and to publish. Whereas the first factor was comprised wholly of U.S. students and fac- ulty, the second was comprised of only international students, primarily from socialist countries in the third world. Their recommendations for curricular and programmatic reform are therefore not surprising: o Increase the number of theory courses to include Marxist, Maoist, East European, and other ideas not currently in the "mainstream." o Recruit faculty with different orientations--e.g., Marxists, who could balance the Department's interpretation of phenom- ena. The third factor seemed less concerned with content than with rules and regulations, and with obtaining an institutional map that would enable them to navigate the treacherous academic waters. These persons there- fore reserved their highest positive scores for policy recommendations such as the following: "Establish a rule or procedure whereby faculty are required to specify clearly and precisely the criteria for grading" and "Develop and distribute an 'oral examination preparation guide' so that both M.A. and Ph.D. students have a better idea of what is ex- pected." Finally, the fourth group, comprised of master's students with an urban policy/American politics thrust, was interested in gaining more time for major interests and in lessening ties to broader disciplinary concerns, viz.: "Incorporate policy-related courses into the program-- e.g., like the courses offered in the Urban Center," "Permit students to take more courses in their areas of concentration," and "Do away with universal requirements--i.e., allow students to design their own re- quirements and courses of study in light of their individual vocational objectives." Such fragmentation is hardly surprising, for it is increasingly characteristic of political science as it has become of other fields, and it was partly in response to this "fractionalizing effect of modern specialization" (Lasswell, 1964, p. 209) that the policy sciences ap- proach was innovated. The challenge to leadership, whether of this one small department or on a global scale, is to locate and mobilize pru- dence (Merriam, 1925; Lindblom, 1974), and it is a virtue of these deci- sion structures that they point the way. Actors within institutions seek to maximize gratifying outcomes-- i.e., to maximize net value indulgences (gross indulgences minus depri- vations) (Lasswell & Holmberg, 1969)--and the following factor scores can assist the decision maker seeking the most prudential way in which to maximize satisfactions in a multivalued situation (scores in brackets are for the first through fourth factors, respectively): [+4 -3 +1 +2] Encourage interdisciplinary work and increase the availability of course work and research opportunities across department lines. [-1 +2 +2 +4] Incorporate policy-related courses into the program--e.g., like the courses offered in the Urban Center. [+2 +3 -1 +3] Expand some courses to two quarters in length-- i.e., to run continuously over a longer period of time so as to permit a more thorough coverage of some materials and ideas. Restricting consideration to these alternatives only, persons comprising the first factor can be seen as benefiting by +6 units (gross indulgence) with but a single unit of deprivation, for a net total of +5; overall, the four factors would achieve a composite net gain of +18 were all three proposals adopted. The mathematics are not intended to be taken too concretely (any more than is Lasswell's formulation of indulgences minus deprivations), but to serve as a visual aid picturing the structure of subjectivity pertinent to obstacles with which the de- cision maker must contend. Subjectivity and the Policy Sciences There is, as Ascher (1986) has pointed out, a convergence involving the policy sciences and the science of subjectivity, and it is important in this regard to recall that Lasswell (1980), in one of his posthumous pa- pers, referred approvingly to "short interview procedures" such as Q, and noted, as if to encourage, that "these methods can be applied in a global network to intensify the understanding of the results obtained from conventional...research" (p. 533). We can feel relatively certain that Lasswell would have endorsed much of what has been said previously, in spirit if not in detail, for he was in touch with the leading edge of scientific advances and gave pride of place to human subjectivity. Only subjectivity brings the past and future into the present, but just as it is capable of selectively intervening so as to delay duration's inevita- ble march to the entropic sea, so is it also capable of becoming en- trapped in destructive configurations, such as the present East-West conflict, which, frozen in time, "may nullify the potential for order by blocking integration within the inclusive context of interaction" (Lasswell, 1964, p. 237). The task is therefore more complicated and more urgent than looking for configurations among variables, that tired and lumbering strategy which Miller and Friesen (1984) have endeavored to dress up in quantumized homespun, but which parades as nakedly Newtonian as the strategies it claims to displace. The real task is nothing less than the continuation of Lasswell's career-long quest for the free man's com- monwealth, which will be recognized ultimately by the quality of subjectivity supporting it, which will, in turn, be discovered, exam- ined, and monitored by evolving technologies which cannot stray too far from that demonstrated above. Notes 1. As he said in the "Afterthoughts" to the 1960 edition (reprinted in 1986), "The Psychopathology was the outcome of an attempt to apply and adapt a procedure rather than to propose a formally exhaustive body of applications of a comprehensive system of theory.... I was more im- pressed by the observational procedures innovated by Freud than by the theory or its then available results" (p. 274). 2. The similarities are indeed in "astonishingly close parallel," as Burt (1940, p. 92) earlier said, sharing such common terms as eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and so forth. As he went on to note, these common ideas developed independently in both psychology and physics, largely because "the material world and the mental world are...very much akin in their ultimate nature, and so yield to the same mode of analy- sis: both being essentially describable in terms of relations between unknown relata" (Burt, 1940, p. 93). 3. The organization, called "Townhall II," is a comprehensive, countywide mental health agency in Kent, Ohio, a university town in Ohio's industrial northeast. Born in the tumultuous social climate of the late 1960s and early '70s, TH2 faced the economic realities of the '80s by expanding services (so as to take advantage of a wider base of grant opportunities) and by identifying with human needs beyond those prevalent in the youth and drug culture. The self assessment of the crisis-hotline service was prompted by resignations and widespread dis- affection among volunteers disapproving of changing agency policies and practices. This study was conducted in cooperation with Richard Henline and will be reported in more detail subsequently. 4. Measurement consists of Q sorting a sample of statements; i.e., in this case, rank ordering a set of 48 statements from agree (+5) to disagree (-5). The statements were selected to balance Myth (ideology, utopia), Symbols (demand, identification, expectation), and Values (wel- fare, deference). For previous agency assessments using Q technique, consult Eisenthal (1973) and Thrush (1957). On Q methodology more gen- erally, see Brown (1980, 1986). 5. Several participants were significantly associated with more than one factor, and consequently were of two minds concerning the or- ganization (e.g., Loyal plus Samaritan, or Loyal plus Critical). This attests to the complimentarity at issue: In particular, those of two minds are apt to vacillate--reacting at times loyally and at times critically--depending on issue and mood among other forces in the field. References Ascher, W. (1986). Subjectivity and the policy sciences. Read at the Second Annual Institute for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity, Uni- versity of Missouri, October 17-18. Brown, S.R. (1980). Political subjectivity. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni- versity Press. Brown, S.R. (1986). Q technique and method: Principles and procedures. In W.D. Berry & M.S. Lewis-Beck (Eds.), New tools for social scien- tists (pp. 57-76). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Burt, C. (1940). The factors of the mind. London: University of London Press. Burt, C. (1958). Quantum theory and the principle of indeterminacy. British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 11, 77-93. Eisenthal, S. (1973). Evaluation of a community mental health role us- ing a structured Q sort. Community Mental Health Journal, 9, 25-33. Lasswell, H.D. (1964). The future of political science. London: Tavistock Publications. Lasswell, H.D. (1980). The future of world communication and propa- ganda. In H.D. Lasswell, D. Lerner & H. Speier (Eds.), Propaganda and communication in world history (Vol. 3, pp. 516-534). Honolulu: Uni- versity Press of Hawaii. Lasswell, H.D. (1986). Psychopathology and politics (Midway Reprints ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Work originally pub- lished 1930) Lasswell, H.D. & Holmberg, A.R. (1969). Toward a general theory of di- rected value accumulation and institutional development. In R. Braibanti (Ed.), Political and administrative development (pp. 354-399). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lindblom, C.E. (1974). Political prudence, political science, and the intelligence of democracy. Read at a meeting of the American Poli- tical Science Association, Chicago. Lindemann, F.A. (1932). The physical significance of the quantum the- ory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merriam, C.E. (1925). New aspects of politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Miller, D. (1978). The role of multivariate "Q-techniques" in the study of organizations. Academy of Management Review, 3, 515-531. Miller, D. & Friesen, P.H. (1984). Organizations: A quantum view. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Stephenson, W. (1983). Quantum theory and Q-methodology: Fictionalistic and probabilistic theories conjoined. Psychological Record, 33, 213-230. Stephenson, W. (in press). How to make a good cup of tea. Operant Subjectivity. Thrush, R.S. (1957). An agency in transition: The case of a counseling center. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 4, 183-189.