Management of Organizational Behavior. by Paul Hersey; Kenneth H.

Blanchard
Review by: L. Richard Hoffman
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), p. 264
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,
Cornell University
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264 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
isting between the cities in the eastern megalop-
olis, an urban oligopolistic theory would be
necessary.Similarly,if the absence of dominance
of the surroundingarea is a significant assump-
tion, what limitationsdoes this place on the use
of the model for generating national urban pol-
icy? In other words, if we view a set consisting
of the 30 largest urban areas as a single urban
area and the remainderof the nation as its envi-
ronment, the limitlessboundaryassumptionmay
be bent. How meaningful then are the recom-
mendationsof the model? While the model may
be useful for describing the proper behavior for
an individual city, is it possible that there exists
a fallacy of the whole?
The reviewer is enthusiastic about the ap-
proach, intrigued by the results, and waiting for
future researchwhich indicates overall and con-
tent validity of Forrester'smodel.
Eugene E. Kaczka
Associate Professorof ManagementScience
University of Massachusetts
Management of Organizational Behavior.
By Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanch-
ard. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1969. 147 pp. $6.95.
The book'stitle and subtitle, Utilizing Human
Resources, create the expectation that a system-
atic presentation of management theory will
follow. Combined with the authors' extensive
backgroundsin trainingand research,one would
expect their book to produce the kind of coher-
ent statement on management practices for
utilizing human resourcesthat would be helpful
to managers.
What a disappointment;instead of coherence
there is confusion. Topics such as organizational
effectiveness are begun, in the middle of which
there is a lengthy discussion of T-group train-
ing. Moreover, the authorsnote that critics and
advocates exist, but offer none of the pros and
cons. Instead of helpful translationsof abstract
theory into concrete practice, theoretical re-
statementsare begun, trailing off into ambiguity
or inaccuracy.In their discussion of motivation,
the authorsstate that needs decrease as they be-
gin to be satisfied, despite the large body of
literatureon changing levels of aspirationwhich
suggests that new and higher goals are set when
lesser goals have been achieved. Distinctions are
made among concepts, but their importance is
not made clear. The authorsdistinguishbetween
leadership as an attainment of individual or
subunit goals, and management as the attain-
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.49 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 23:06:29 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ment of organizationalgoals; then they describe
leadershipstyles in terms indistinguishablefrom
those of management.And as might be expected
from a book which presents the views of almost
every well-known writer in management and
organization theory, there are many internal
contradictionsfrom chapter to chapter.
There are points of interest in the book; how-
ever, these are so lost in the overall disorganiza-
tion, inaccuracy,and self-contradictionsof most
of the material that many readers would have
difficulty recognizing them. The authors are
obviously well read in the field, but they have
not performed the service of translating these
readings into a useful presentation, either for
managers or for theorists. This is unfortunate,
because the service is needed and the authors
have the literary style to do it well.
L. Richard Hoffman
Professor of Psychology
University of Chicago
Power and Leadership in Pluralist Systems.
By Andrew S. McFarland. Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1969. 265 pp. $7.50.
While generally sympathetic to the pluralist
theories of power such as those of Robert Dahl
or Nelson Polsby, and tending to agree with
their critique of the elitist models found in the
works of C. Wright Mills and Floyd Hunter,
McFarlandcontends that the pluralist approach
is flawed by its failure to distinguish between
political decisions that are critical and those that
are routine. Such failure, he argues, is apt to
prevent the detection of spurious pluralism.
Using studies of the U.S. Forest Service and the
Soviet firm, the author shows that even strongly
hierarchicaland elitist structures are pluralistic
if one considersthe plethora of routine decisions
and bargains made at every level. In such sys-
tems, there are indeed many people with signif-
icant, decentralizedpower, but this pluralismis
spurioussince the key decisions are made at the
top.
Leaning heavily on the Bachrach and Baratz
(1962) criticismof Dahl, McFarlandinsists that
if the scope of an issue is not being analyzed,
and if the political values defining the rules of
the game are being ignored, real pluralism can-
not be distinguished from spurious pluralism.
For example, prior definitions of permissible is-
sues may preclude many issues from being
brought to the fore. Non-decision making, that
is, avoiding unsafe issues, may be just as sig-
nificant as decision making.