DEMOCRACY, SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND EFFICIENCY IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY: TOWARD A CRITICAL MODEL

The dissertation is a project in political philosophy applied to organizational theory. It examines the extent to which three models of organization reflect American societal commitments to democracy. Furthermore, the paper investigates the prospects by which these three models provide for the everyday social practice of democracy and for public worklife environments. There are two primary focuses of analytic concern in the dissertation.;The second focus of concern critically analyzes the historically-specific cultural and ideological settings of each of the three theorists and the implications of these settings on their respective models of organization. Simultaneously, the intent is to examine the place of their theories or models in the structure of political economy. The objective of these two interrelated levels of analysis is to critically illuminate how the concept priority each scholar attaches to his respective model poses barriers toward the realization of an authentically public organizational theory.;Inasmuch as each of the analytical models pose such difficulties, the final chapter considers criteria envisioned as essential for a theory of organization to more fully warrant a designation of public. In its most basic aspects, this alternative model is one fundamentally concerned with increasing democratic, as well as developmental, potentialities for humans in worklife environments--human actors who affect and are affected by decision of organization.;In the first analytic focus, the intent is to assess the adequacies of three theoretical perspectives on organization as models for public administration. These three models are evaluated in terms of their primary value priorities. The three basic value concepts considered are: efficiency, democracy, i.e., as in democratic administration, and self-development. Also, the three paradigms of organization analyzed in regards to these concept criteria are: (1) the monocentric model of organization as exemplified in the writings of Luther Gulick; (2) the concurrent model proposed by Vincent Ostrom; and, (3) the self-development paradigm as expressed in the literature of Chris Argyris.