Organizational goals are not inflexible guides to
behaviour. Although organizations tend towards stability, goals change over
time. Goal changes mean that goal priorities are periodically reevaluated and
re-examined in the face of changes in its internal as well as external
environment.
Basically an organization is not static, and a set of objectives
cannot be static if it is to succeed. Managers may feel that there is scope for
further expansion and instead of concentrating only on audio sets
the production of video sets may also be undertaken.
They may look at what
competitors or other organizations have decided to match or exceed these levels
(investment companies and chit id organizations turning to leasing business).
At times, demands m coalition groups that make up the enterprise may change and
the organization may he forced to change. Finally, as organizations progress
and undergo cyclical changes, objectives also change. Normally goal changes are expressed in two forms: goal displacement and goal succession.
A. Goal Displacement: This severe type of organizational distortion was first explored
fifty seven years ago by the German sociologist, Robert Micheals. It arises
when an organization displaces its goal - that substitutes for its legitimate
goal some other goal for which it was orated, for which resources were not
allocated to, and which it is not to serve. Michael’s book, Political
Parties, is credited with St extensive description and analysis of this
phenomenon of goal 1acement Micheals studied the socialist parties and Labour
Unions Europe before World War I.
He pointed out that the parties and Labour were formed to forward
the socialist revolution and to establish democratic regime in authoritarian
countries such as Bismarck
many. In its efforts to serve these goals, the socialist movement created party
and Union organizations. The organizations demanded .leadership; the leaders
soon developed vested interests in maintaining their positions, since loss of
their organizational positions would have forced the leaders to return to
manual labour, to a life of low prestige, i low income.
The organization’s
democratic goals, Michael maintains, were subverted. Furthermore, the leaders
were less and less induced to take risks in their revolutionary activities for
fear that they would anger the government, and so endanger the organization’s
instance. The party abandoned its militant activities in favour of increasing
attention to development of a smoothly working organizational machine. S.D.C
lark revealed it in his study of the. Salivation Army in Canada. He
showed that as the organization grew larger and larger and became more
successful in its ability to obtain members and funds, the leadership began to
devote more and more of its attention and resources to the maintenance of the
organization. It even gave up evangelical work in those parts of Canada where
there was insufficient local financial support to maintain a chapter,
presumably because such a chapter might become a drain on the organization’s
national resources.
Goal displacement generally takes
place when goals are expressed in an ambiguous manner. It occurs when the means
that are being used to achieve goal become, in facts, the real goals. In a
hospital for example, patient-care may be the official goal. Because of space
constraint, lack of resources and adequate support from the government, the
official goal may be sacrificed in favour of the real goal, that is taking care
of rich and influential patients only.
B. Goal
Succession: Goal succession is simply the introduction of new goals when
old goals have been achieved or discarded. Allowing old goals to outlive their
utility will be disastrous for organizations. When the organization is
confronted with receding sales, cut-throat competition, shortage of funds, the
only way to survive is to find out new goals which can inject a fresh life to
an otherwise decaying institution. A case in point is David Sills’ The
volunteers, a study of the Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The major goal
of the foundation was to recruit public support for the medical research needed
to fight polio and to provide assistance for its victims. As Sills reports, the
Foundation was not diverted from its goal.
On the contrary, in an effort that
lasted two decades, it succeeded in providing many of the means that led to an
almost complete elimination of polio: it supported much of the medical research
done in this area which finally led to the famous Salk polio Vaccine. The
Foundation was then, so to speak, unemployed.
The Foundation might simply have been disbanded, but instead the
organization founded a new goal-combating Arthrists and Birth defects.
Without
a goal, the Foundation’s activity had no meaning for the members and no
legitimacy in the community. It had to find a new goal or cease its activity.
Such clear-cut cases of goal succession are rare both because
most organizations do not reach their goals in such definite way as the polio
foundation did, and because many of those who do achieve their goals are
dissolved.
More common is the succession of goals when the service of the old is highly unsuccessful leaving the organization to find a new goal to serve if it is to survive. It is even more common for an organization such a situation to set additional goals or expand the scope of their ones. In doing this the organization acts to increase the dedication its members and encourage the recruitment of new members. Many religious organizations added social and community service goals which were, in some instances, superseded the older spiritual goals.
Prayers cut short in some places to leave more time for square dances. us the organization’s self interests may lead not only to displacement primary goals by other secondary goals or by means, but also may d the organization to actively seek new goals once the old ones are used, or to acquire additional goals. Initially, these latter goals are n justified by the fact that they will enhance the service of the old goals, but often they become fill-fledged equals if not masters.
More common is the succession of goals when the service of the old is highly unsuccessful leaving the organization to find a new goal to serve if it is to survive. It is even more common for an organization such a situation to set additional goals or expand the scope of their ones. In doing this the organization acts to increase the dedication its members and encourage the recruitment of new members. Many religious organizations added social and community service goals which were, in some instances, superseded the older spiritual goals.
Prayers cut short in some places to leave more time for square dances. us the organization’s self interests may lead not only to displacement primary goals by other secondary goals or by means, but also may d the organization to actively seek new goals once the old ones are used, or to acquire additional goals. Initially, these latter goals are n justified by the fact that they will enhance the service of the old goals, but often they become fill-fledged equals if not masters.