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Perhaps the most vigorous movement in administration in recent years has been directed toward the development of a comprehensive theory capable of generating both hypotheses for guiding research and principles for guiding practice. Despite many specific advances in special areas, such as hospital administration, public administration, business administraton, and educational administration, there still is no general conceptual framework for systematizing and interrelating our knowledge within and among these areas. It is still impossible to speak of administration in terms that would be acceptable to, or for that matter even readily understandable by, students and practitioners in the several special fields. This failure to conceptualize administration on a general theoretical level has been a major obstacle to the development of administration as a rigorous discipline, and the elaboration of theory is accordingly receiving increased attention both in "research" and "applied" administrative settings. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: (a) to describe a socio-psychological theory of social behavior having broad application to the area of administration and (b) to illustrate the application of the theory to major issues in administration. The four major issues considered here are: the problem of institutional and individual conflict; the problem of staff effectiveness, efficiency, and satis-J. W. GETZELS is an associate professor of education at the University of Chicago. E. G. GUBA is an associate professor of education at the University of Kansas City.

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Examined the significance of the "problem-formulation" stage of creative activity. 31 advanced art students were observed in a quasi-naturalistic setting of an art school while carrying out an assignment to produce a still-life drawing. Observations of "discovery-oriented" behavior were recorded for each S from the organization of the objects until drawing completion. The finished art work was independently evaluated by an expert panel on 3 dimensions: (a) overall value, (b) originality, and (c) craftsmanship. A positive relationship was found between discovery-oriented behavior at the problem-formulation stage and the originality, but not the craftsmanship, of the creative product. Results affirm the theoretical and empirical importance of the problem-formulation stage of the creative process and suggest a method for observing and analyzing behavior at this stage. (22 ref.)