Understanding the Policy Process: The Work of Henry Mintzberg

Abstract

Do Henry Mintzberg's writings make an enduring, invaluable contribution to our understanding of the contemporary public policy process? Mintzberg argues that organizations display eight structural configurations and corresponding coordinating mechanisms. Such structural configurations are shaped by a variety of contingency factors, especially power and environmental ones. Using Mintzberg's work, eight policy modes, corresponding to structural configurations within government organizations and political systems, are identified and placed on a matrix that comprises two dimensions: standardization and centralization. Six polarities in the policy process arise from this matrix. Mintzberg's work, the paper argues, remains of enduring value because it provides a seminal framework for a richer understanding of the current policy process, by offering a contingency theory of structures and policy modes, as well as by frank acknowledgment of the protean nature of the policy process.

A Fit Between Individual and Organizational Values and Its Implications for Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Performance

“…The espoused values, which are the artificial variables created to support the strategy of the organization, serve as the guiding principles and standards of conduct for a company's employees. By implementing espoused values in the organization, managers are trying to establish what Mintzberg calls the standardization of norms (Matheson, 2009) so that everybody in the organization would be performing their tasks according to the same set of beliefs. Of course, this process will not work if managers try to implement the values that mismatch with the ones that employees already have.…”

Coupling of Problems, Political Attention, Policies and Institutional Conditions: Explaining the Performance of Environmental Targets in the National Five-Year Plans in China

“…Hood [40] suggested that targets are more likely to be achieved in a hierarchical and centralized context. Mintzberg [41][42][43] also advocated that in centralized organizations a top-down planning with explicit targets can facilitate organizational performance [44].…”

Estructura organizativa e innovación en la Economía Social de Andalucía

“…También, Mintzberg (1996) refleja este carácter multidisciplinar en nueve parámetros de diseño referidos al esquema de puestos de trabajo (la especialización, la formalización del comportamiento, la preparación y el adoctrinamiento), al diseño de la superestructura (agrupación de unidades y tamaño de la unidad), al diseño de vínculos laterales (sistemas de planificación y control, y dispositivos de enlace) y diseño del sistema decisor (centralización). Lo cierto, es que se exalta la afirmación de Matheson (2009) sobre que la formalización del comportamiento y la centralización son los parámetros de diseño clave de la estructura.…”

“…En este ámbito, resaltan los trabajos de Burns y Stalker (1961), quienes distinguen estructuras mecanicistas y orgánicas; Mintzberg (1996) identifica cinco configuraciones estructurales (estructura simple, burocracia maquinal, burocracia profesional, forma divisional y adhocracia), y más recientemente, Matheson (2009) propone ocho configuraciones estructurales (profesional, misionera, maquinal, diversificada, en red, política, autocrática y carismática). Sobre ello y señalando a Burns y Stalker (1961), las estructuras orgánicas son menos formalizadas, más flexibles, más creativas y adaptadas a la innovación.…”