Brandon C.
PAF 602 (Fall 2008)

Abstract

Denhardt, R. B. (1991). In the Shadow of Organization. Regents Press of Kansas.

Robert Denhardt’s In the Shadow of Organization focuses on the impact of individuals within organizations and how organizational efficiency or rationality is encroaching into our individuality. Modern organizations and organization administration have heavily borrowed principles of rationality and objectivity from the sciences. This has resulted in a one-sided focus of placing the rational goals of the organization above, and often in place of, those of the individual members of the organization. This, according to Jung, inhibits the necessary individualization required by people to become whole and balanced beings.

Professor Denhardt argues that rational organizations striving for efficiency choose individuals to participate in their organization based on the individual’s ability to accept organizational goals as their own. In doing so, the organization exercises their power and domination over the individual  by restricting personal creativity, morality, and interactions. Indeed, it is the goal of organizations to impersonalize and objectify our lives such that we can more easily follow higher bureaucratic goals. However, Professor Denhardt attests that these methods of objectification within the organization are spilling over into our personal lives; thus throwing off what Jung identifies as the “‘wholeness’ of the personality” (p. 47). Hence, even decisions of such personal significance as our own morality begin to take on the rationality and objectivity of the organizations to which we are apart.

As a result of this organizational dominance in our personal decision making, individuals can easily substitute their own morality for that of the organization.  Within the organization, individual lapses of morality are justified by the “greater purpose and superior rationality of bureaucracy” (p. 85). Yet we are still falsely drawn to the rational organization for a sense of immortality and compensation for the “irrationality in human life” (p. 90). “The satisfaction of certain needs may be supported by the ethic of organization, but the needs of the spirit cannot” (p. 132).

In the Shadow of Organization seems to provide public administration a counter to the purely positivistic views of organizational administration outlined by scholars like Taylor, Weber, and Simon. It serves as a warning to approaching issues with a single-minded attitude.

Critique

I found Professor Denhardt’s In the Shaddow of Organization to be a surprisingly good counter to the structured and objective approaches to organization administration outlined by Simon and others. Being personally interested in organization theory, and more specifically in organizations as systems of domination and control, I found Denhardt’s arguments familiar yet still impactful. His use of Jung and Habermas were highly influential in supporting his thesis and in lending legitimacy to the argument.

Of the more impactful sections of the book was the introduction of Jung’s “wholeness” concept. With personal interests and beliefs in eastern religious teachings that emphasize life and universal balance, it was exciting to see this principle (though only superficial) applied in an organization and administrative context. I personally believe that by taking a balanced approach to any problem, social or personal, both the path and the solution are more easily traversed and attained. Unfortunately, balance of thought and action are not popular methods of problem solving in much of the West, as it requires a give and take amongst all members; not something central to the capitalist mindset (much less the model of bureaucracy).

If I had to make one critique of Professor Denhardt’s In the Shadow of Organization, it would be the lack of criticism of Simon’s Administrative Behavior. While dedicating close to a chapter on laying out Simon’s argument and the critique of it, I felt a lack of “zing” I suppose. With a central argument so contradictory to Simon, I was expecting, to put it simply, more of an outwardly affront to Simon. It seems that the biggest attack to Simon professor Denhardt makes is through Argyris:

“Simon appears to make rational activity the basis for effective nonprogrammed problem solving. As such he excludes intuition, spontaneity, and faith.” But choices are made and in many cases must and should be made on the basis of human capacities other than those which accord with technical rationality. (p. 28)

However, not knowing the academic environment of the time, it is hard to make this critique stick. I would suppose that in the 80’s Simon was a very big name in many fields and an outward attack on his popular work might be seen as not professionally advisable.

Overall, I very much agree with and appreciate professor Denhardt’s work. It has served to remind me of my passion for organization theory, and in the process, may have rekindled a few fires on my disdain of power and domination in society.

Tags: abstract, bureaucracy, domination, morality, objectivity, Organization, public administration, rationality, Robert Denhardt