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Explaining the Variable Utility of Disjointed Incrementalism: Four Propositions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ian Lustick
Ian Lustick*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Abstract

Much of mainstream organization theory has been concerned with the implications for organizational design and policy process of high levels of uncertainty or complexity in task environments. Decentralization, disjointed incrementalist decision strategies, and quasi-market coordinative mechanisms have been advanced as rational responses to the complexity of most problems in the socio-political sphere. This article presents and illustrates four conditions which reduce the relative utility of this approach as a means of coping with uncertainty. The propositions are shown to be implicit in the logic of “muddling through,” and are used to help explain/predict the evolution of relatively centralized and planned organizations in certain types of complex task environments.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 342 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1980

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