Part III: Public Organizations of the Future

Martha S. Feldman is the Johnson Chair

for Civic Governance and Public Manage-

ment and a professor of planning, policy

and design, political science, management

and sociology at the University of California,

Irvine. She is a senior editor for Organiza-

tion Science and book review editor for the

International Public Management Journal.

Her research examines organizational

routines and practices, including manage-

ment practices for collaborative governance

in public organizations.

E-mail: feldmanm@uci.edu

Managing the Organization of the Future S159

Martha S. FeldmanUniversity of California, Irvine

Managing the Organization of the Future

The public organization of the future will be more collaborative, the boundaries will be more porous, and there will be more connect-

ing to the public as well as to other jurisdictions and to the private and nonprofi t sectors. Ultimately, the organization of the future will be primarily concerned with the process of acting, and structures will be seen as interrelated with actions rather than as independent of actions.

We are already starting to see the emergence of the or-ganization of the future. Th is emergence is spurred by recognition of the dynamic, complex, and interdepen-dent nature of the problems that organizations deal with. Silos and stovepipes are increasingly seen as caus-ing more harm than good. Th ere is a corresponding increase in scholarship about collaboration, collabora-tive governance, inclusive management, partnerships, projects, and stakeholders (see, e.g., Ansell and Gash 2008; Bryson 2004; Crosby and Bryson 2005; Den-hardt and Denhardt 2000; Feldman and Khademian 2000, 2007; Hajer and Wagenaar 2003; Innes and Booher 2003; Milward and Provan 2000; O’Leary and Bingham 2009; O’Leary, Gerard, and Bingham 2006; Provan and Kenis 2008; Roberts 2004).

Th e challenge for practitioners operating in the future and for scholars in studying and provid-ing ways for practitioners to operate in the future is to move from a focus on static entities to an understanding of the rela-tionship between dynamic pro-cesses and static entities, from a focus on organization to a focus on the interaction between or-ganization and organizing. Th is is essential to eff ective collabora-tion. Collaboration as a process cannot be for its own sake, and if it is only a way to accomplish the present task, much of the

potential is missed. Collaboration can create capacity for addressing not only the current problem but also those that follow. New ways of understanding collabo-ration can help us achieve these potentials.

Th e need for collaboration has been established. What practitioners and scholars both struggle with is the ability to make collaboration productive (Bardach 1998; Feldman, Khademian, and Quick 2009; Moore 1995). At every level, collaboration is often met with frustration. Eff orts to include the public, eff orts to col-laborate across organizational and jurisdictional units, and eff orts to partner with the private or nonprofi t sector often take place only as a last resort. Some refer to this as “failing into collaboration” (Ansell and Gash 2008; Roberts 2004), in part because these eff orts ap-pear to be so diffi cult. Public managers and frontline practitioners must do the work; scholars of organiza-tion theory and public management need to help.

How can scholars help? In the second half of this essay, I introduce a theoretical approach that provides a way of thinking about the interactions between pro-cess and outcome. Th is approach to research has the potential to provide explanations that can generalize from one context to another without assuming that

the same action will work in diff erent contexts (Feldman and Orlikowski, forthcoming). Be-ing able to replicate a successful outcome is complex because contexts change over time and from organization to organiza-tion. By explaining processes and their relation to outcomes, scholars can legitimate and cre-ate a space for experimentation that enables people to tailor practices for specifi c contexts.

Take, for instance, the way in which organizations prepare to collaborate during crises (Bigley

Th e challenge for practitioners operating in the future and for scholars in studying and

providing ways for practitioners to operate in the future is to move from a focus on static entities to an understanding of the relationship between

dynamic processes and static entities, from a focus on organization to a focus on the interaction between

organization and organizing.

S160 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue

and Jackson 2007). Foster care is sometimes the appropriate out-come of family group decision making, but the inability to value the dynamic relationship between the collaborative actions taken and the outcomes achieved and the resulting shift in focus from family and community engagement to reducing days in foster care made it diffi cult to see that outcome as appropriate.

Th ere is an alternative. Th eories of practice allow scholars and practitioners to understand the importance of action in creating and re-creating structures as well as the importance of structures in constraining and enabling actions. Th ese theories, articulated by scholars of the social sciences and philosophy (Bourdieu 1977, 1990; Giddens 1976, 1979, 1984; Latour 1986, 2005; Lave 1988; Ortner 1984, 1989; Schatzki 2001), provide new insight into the potential for collaboration in organizations and policy domains. Th ey allow us to rethink fundamental concepts such as agency, structure, power, objectivity, and subjectivity in ways that make it possible to explore the processes of adjustment that produce stable patterns. Th ese theories enable the researcher and practitioner to focus on the continuous nature of the dynamics intrinsic to organiz-ing, and thus to create new ways of engaging public potential to address public problems.

In this short essay, it is only possible to provide the briefest of intro-ductions to practice theory and its potential for understanding the role of organizing in addressing public problems.1 In the following, I provide a brief example and pointers to some of the excellent re-search already published and under way. I apologize for any research that I have omitted from this list. My eff ort is to provide pointers in a variety of directions rather than to be exhaustive. Th e references listed will lead to many others.

From the perspective of practice theory, collaboration creates the community that enacts the task as well as the product of the task (Feldman and Khademian 2008; Feldman and Quick 2009). Th is

recursive relationship means that community building and task accomplishment (or process and outcome) are not in a trade-off relation-ship. If you sacrifi ce one, you also impair the other. Th is understanding of the relationship has been captured in the 50/50 rule used in a Midwestern city (Quick and Feldman 2009). According to this rule, the success of the project is assessed equally on the quality of the process and the quality of the outcome. More-

over, the process is assessed by whether it increased the capacity of the community to solve future problems.

Practice theories and the recursive relationship between action and structures have been engaged by scholars in organization theory (Carlile 2002, 2004; Czarniawska 2004; Feldman 2000, 2004; Jarzabkowski 2005; Wenger 1998; Nicolini, Gherardi, and Yanow 2003; Orlikowski 2000, 2002; Tsoukas and Chia 2002), planning (Forester 1999; Healey 1997; Schön 1983; Schweitzer, Howard, and Doran 2008), and public management (Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson 2009; Crampton 2001; Czarniawska 2002; Feldman and Khademian 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008; Feldman and Quick 2009; Kenney 2007; Quick and Feldman 2009; Sandfort 2000, 2003, 2010; Th acher 2001, 2009; Yanow 1996). Th ese scholars show us

and Roberts 2001; Kristensen, Kyng, and Palen 2006). In some or-ganizations, this practice is a vibrant learning opportunity; in others, it is a rote operation. What do we know about what makes the dif-ference? While it is certainly important to assess such preparation in terms of speed, the number of mistakes made, and similar outcome measures, unless people in each context use the process as a way to learn, doing better the next time is just a matter of chance.

In organization theory and public management, an entity focus has predominated for many years. Th is focus has been productive. We have learned much about the power of structures and the impor-tance of the forms of organization. Th e insights of Taylor (1911), Gulick and Urwick (1937), Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), Th omp-son (1967), and many others continue to be relevant. Scholars have built on these insights to explore the infl uence of structures on or-ganizational processes. Studies of decision-making processes provide an excellent example. Organizational structures and the structures of policy domains, eminent scholars have argued, infl uence the nature of rationality in decision making (Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972; Lindblom 1959; March and Simon 1958; Simon 1997).

As with any focus, however, the focus on entities and structures is partial and limiting. While action and processes have been consid-ered, the emphasis on the importance of structures has supported a division between actions and structures that is refl ected in a dichotomization of processes and outcomes. Studies often identify structures as independent variables and processes as dependent vari-ables. Studies of the relationship between structures and outcomes often consider processes as, at best, the mysterious black box that connects the two. Take, for instance, the various box and arrow fi gures that are so often found in scholarly articles. Th e boxes are always labeled, but the arrows are often unadorned, as if they are either unimportant or speak for themselves. We tend not to spend time theorizing the arrows or understanding the many diff erent ways in which entities can be connected, while spending a great deal of time theorizing and measuring the boxes. Th is bifurcated approach to structures and outcomes, on the one hand, and processes or actions, on the other, can result in a belief that they exist independent of one another. Th e upshot is overestimating the stability of structures and outcomes and underestimating the contribution of action or processes.

While the division of dependent and indepen-dent variables may make research more tractable, seeing the actions that people take as being constrained and enabled by structures but not constitutive of them is problematic for understanding the nature of coordination across organizational, jurisdictional, sectoral, tem-poral, and other “boundaries.” To illustrate, consider a child welfare practice called family group decision making. Th e focus of this prac-tice is a plan for protecting and caring for an abused or neglected child that is developed through a meeting of the child’s extended family. Th e plan often reduces the number of days in foster care. Research on the implementation of this practice showed that as the reduction emerged, this outcome was often mistaken for the goal, and specifi c instances of family group decision making were judged by whether they had reduced days in foster care rather than how the process had been used to serve the interests of the child (Crampton

[A] recursive relationship means that community building and

task accomplishment (or process and outcome) are not in a trade-off relationship. If you sacrifi ce one, you also impair the other.

Managing the Organization of the Future S161

AcknowledgmentsI am grateful for the helpful comments of Natalie Baker, David Crampton, Rosemary O’Leary, Katie Pine, Kathy Quick, Jodi Sand-fort, and David Van Slyke.

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the role of action in producing and reproducing constructs that have been seen as entities, such as community (Quick and Feldman 2009), knowledge (Carlile 2002, 2004; Nicolini, Gherardi, and Yanow 2003; Orlikowski 2002), policy (Crampton 2001; Yanow 1996), strategy (Jarzabkowski 2005), and technology (Orlikowski 2000). Th ey show us ways to understand the interrelated nature, for instance, of community, action, and policy (Czarniawska 2004; Jarzabkowski 2005; Quick and Feldman 2009; Yanow 1996), or of technologies, learning, and knowing (Brown and Duguid 1991; Carlile 2002, 2004; Gherardi 2006; Kenney 2007; Lave and Wenger 1991; Orlikowski 2000, 2002), that can help us enact collaborative and inclusive organizing.

Many signifi cant research questions arise from a practice theory perspective. Here, I will just mention three broad areas.

1. Accountability: Th e family group decision making example illustrates a familiar problem—accounting for outcomes alone often distorts what we want to achieve. How can we develop ways of accounting not only for what was accomplished, but also for the attention to the future consequences of how it was accomplished?

2. Empowerment: Eff ective collaborations often depend on community and/or employee empowerment. Yet by theorizing power asymmetries as characteristics of people and groups or as associated with stable structures of society rather than as the consequences of our actions, we tend to theorize empowerment as the giving away of power and limit the likelihood of people taking these actions. Focus-ing on the dynamics of power would enable scholars and practitioners to reconceptualize empowerment as productive rather than redistributive, suggesting new possibilities for action.

3. Leadership: Viewed through a practice theory lens, leader-ship is defi ned as the practices that enable communities to move forward rather than as a feature of an individual (Quick 2010). How communities create, modify, and en-gage such practices is a signifi cant fi eld of future research.

Practice theory provides a diff erent way of doing research that extends the potential of current research agendas. Current research is often conducted in ways that make it diffi cult, if not impossible, to understand the dynamic nature of public problems and the potential for public administration to address them. Th is is an unnecessary limitation on our re-search. While research that establishes the cur-rent state of aff airs is useful, that research also needs to be embedded in an understanding of the dynamic interactions between outcomes and the processes that produce and reproduce them. Practice theory is also important for practitioners, for whom this perspective illuminates their potential for productivity in a collaborative world. We need to train students, whether they want to become practitioners or scholars, to be capable of analyzing the dynamic nature of public problems and understand-ing the potential we all have for addressing them. Practice theory is an excellent starting point for achieving these understandings.

Practice theory provides a diff erent way of doing research

that extends the potential of current research agendas.

S162 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue

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