Frame Shifting, Sense Making and Accounting

@ 1987 Scandinavian

Journal ofManagement Studies.

Mav 1987

Sten Jhsson

How does one choose between paradigms? Is there a neutral lan-

guage that can be used in translating descriptions of phenomena

from one frame of reference (functional organization) to a sensible

description within another frame of reference (local integration)?

The empirical content of this problem complex is illustrated

through a case study of the organizing efforts of two actors in an ex-

periment with a new principle of local coordination across depart-

mental frontiers in a professionally sectorized structure. The analysis

of the material focuses on how the respondents try to make sense of

the processes they initiate and participate in, and what role a

sophisticated accounting system played.

By shifting frames of reference the actor, in this case a change

agent, can construct decision packages that are meaningful also to

actors in the old organizational structure. Agreements, after political

processes, across jurisdictional frontiers are confirmed through

changes in the budget/accounting system.

The Problem Ever since Kuhn (1964) challenged current views on the growth of (scientific) knowledge there has been an inten- sified debate about the possibilities ofconstructing a meta- language (philosophy?) that could serve as a medium in which paradigms could be compared and evaluated. Some (e.g. Kuhn or Feyerabend) say that paradigms are by definition incommensurable. If one paradigm were translatable into another they would not be separate par- adigms. Others (e.g. Popper) talk scornfully about the Myth of the Framework meaning that it is an illusion to

believe that we are so firmly encased in our theories, ex- periences, expectations, and language that we are un- able to communicate with those who are imprisoned in other paradigms. For the theory of social sciences this is clearly a crucial problem. Progress is being made and a basis for a position seems to be emerging in theories of communication and discourse (c.f. McCarthy, 1978; Bernstein, 1983; Giddens, 1984).

In a more modest way a reorganization may include a shift in paradigms. This is the case if a functionally oriented organization is changed into a product oriented one, for example. Still more radical is the change if a functional bureaucracy is reorganized into a district or- ganization, in which integration across sectors is suppos- ed to be managed locally.

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In public sector organizations the implementation of organizational change usually includes trial periods that are presented as experiments to be evaluated before any firm decision on the future organization is taken, In fact evaluations are rare and trial peripds are periods when organizational members have to learn to handle a new paradigm, i.e. to break away from the old ways and get accustomed to a new praxis.

This article deals with how two organizational mem- bers cope with the confrontation of organizational para- digms in a case study of the organizing process during a trial period, in which a radically different mode of inte- grating functionally sectorized activities was introduced.

The theme of the study is that accounting (in a broad sense) seems to play a role as a medium through which transactions between paradigms can take place. This is not a very original thought, but it may be a useful one in studies of the role of accounting in society.

Methodk for the Study of Accounting in Action

The intensified discussion on methodology among ac- counting researchers (Tomkins & Groves, 1983; Boland & Pondy , 1983) is in part a reflection of a general shift in perspective on the system studied, from the designer’s to the user’s point of view. In the designer perspective a ra- tional frame of reference is natural and observed devia- tions from the intended rational decision maker behav- iour are signs of a need for more information and/or bet- ter training. In the user perspective there is first an im- mediate realization that the accounting system is only a part of the decision maker’s environment, and the ob- vious conclusion that any usefulness or impact the ac- counting system might have on the organization is then always mediated through decision maker images of problems or situations. As a consequence of this shift in perspective, the methodological problem has arisen of studying users of information in context.

Furthermore, there is a problem of epistemology and onthology. What is to be regarded as (relevant) knowl- edge about the user of information depends on the on- thological assumptions on which the inquiry into user/ context processes is based (c.f Churchman, 1971). Here Burrell and Morgan (1979), and others (e.g. Scott, 1981) give different classificatory schemes to characterize diffe- rent approaches.

Boland and Pondy (1983, 1986) distinguish between natural and rational perspectives, describing rational

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models as assuming that “managements are confronted with an objectively knowable, empirically verifyable re- ality that presents demands for action” (Boland and Pon- dy, 1983 p.223). “Natural models, on the other hand, see managements as responsible agents who interact symbolically and, in so doing, create their social reality and give meaning to their ongoing stream of experi- ence.” (same page).

Methodological discussions tend to emphasize polari- ties - either mechanistic or organic, subjectivist or objectivist, rational or symbolic. Boiand and Pondy pro- pose that organizations and their accounting systems should not be understood as natural (symbolic) or rational (instrumental) but as both. There is a genuine union; symbolic aspects of an organizational phenome- non provide a background for understanding instru- mental aspects and vice versa. The two views relate as mutual contexts also when the manager tries to make sense out of an emerging decision making situation, i.e. when he is a user of accounting information. The man- ager shifts between frames of references in dealing with problems and in and through these shifts constructs the necessary order for action. Furthermore, following Gid- dens (1979;1984), the manager is a competent social agent, who reflexively monitors action against a back- ground of social rationalization of action. Social actors know a great deal about the functioning of systems with- in which they act. They are also able to account for their conduct. ‘Account’ in this connection is synonymous with explain. Explanation draws upon the same stocks of knowledge which are used in the production and repro- duction of action. Giddens (1979 pp 56) defines practical consciousness as “tacit knowledge that is skillfully ap- plied in the enactment of courses of conduct, but which the actor is not able to formulate discursively” (op.cit. p 57). This then seems to be a kind of sense-making basis that is difficult to subject to observation.

From this onthoiogical sketch implications for re- search on the use of accounting information follow: 1) It must focus on action in organizational settings, analyze specific situations where social actors experience accounting systems, 2) be interpretive, i.e. account for the observed phenomena in a perspective from within the actor’s frame of reference and, 3) then step out of the actor’s frame of reference and take a critical view of the actor’s definition of the situa- tion.

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It is important to stress that a subjectivist approach in the interpretive moment should be complemented by an analysis from a suitable theoretical perspective.

Boland and Pondy (1986) follow this prescription in their study of a budget cutting process in a school district board meeting. Even if the object of study is a group rather than an individual, they show convincingly how the problem solving group seems to use frame shifting as a method in constructing decisions.

They also conclude that the accounting system is Ja- nus-faced; it can be used to abstract for analysis without regard for persons (dollar figures instead of the teacher who will have to go) but it can also be used “for piercing to the bodies of those affected by the analysis” (i. e. pointing out the person who corresponds to $15.000 sav- ed).

This article is inspired by the potential that lies in the Boland and Pondy line of reasoning and especially the figure/ground metaphor; at times symbolic aspects of the situation are bracketed while accounting data are brought to the foreground for calculation and celebra- tions of rationality, after which there might be a reversal whereby accounting data are bracketed while competing values are explored and positions taken within the boundaries of earlier analyses, etc. There are reasons for assuming that there is no overarching logic guiding these shifts between frames of reference (Quinn, 1980). Instead there are reasons for believing (c.f. the associationist approach to cognition advocated by Wilson, 1980) that the process consists of local rationalities and linked par- tial solutions, and that synthesis is perceived only after the fact. This may mean that some of these partial solu- tions will be eliminated in a process of implementation, which in turn can be seen as the manifestation of such a synthesis.

Obviously the proposals of Boland and Pondy need further illumination by being applied to different set- tings. It would be of special interest to apply them to processes other than budgeting. The following case deals with a process of reorganization in a political organiza- tion.

The Setting

Like most reorganizations, this one has a history. In the case of Local Boards the issue had been widely discussed throughout the, country for some time. There had been experiments in other communities.

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The motor in the formation of the welfare state in Sweden was the central agencies. They needed compe- tent local administrations on the operational level. So the municipal level was rationalized (2,500 municipali- ties 1952, about 280 in 1985) on sectorial/professional criteria. Sectorial thinking (school issues, traffic issues etc) was strengthened by way of special legislation and rules for state grants.

The steady growth of the economy and increased tax rates prevented inter-sector priorities from ever becom- ing an acute problem. Politics could be conducted in one sector at a time. Sectorial interests could be institu- tionalized.

Then came the financial crises in the public sector to- wards the end of the 1970s. Continued high service am- bitions and scarce resources generated problems ofinter- sector priorities. The solution that many parties endors- ed in this situation was decentralization; to move politi- cal decisions closer to the people, to mobilize local sup- port and engage new kinds of resources, adapting servic- es to local conditions. Adapting to local conditions means designing unique solutions and abandoning stan- dardization, that hallmark of hierarchical control and rational administration. The new idea was to integrate services across departmental and professional bounda- ries. Social workers should cooperate with school people in solving the problem of immigrant children who were having trouble adapting to the new environment etc. People and problems are not sectorized even if budgets are, and consequently integrative decisions are needed to pool and direct resources in new combinations. If this integration is to be based on the local geographical area instead of the former sector-al departments and to be carried out by local political boards and if, to add a further complication, if it is to meet the requirements of industrial democracy practices, a lot of institutional, professional and political values will be threatened.

Unions, central state agencies, professional associa- tions, political parties, and central municipal offices will see threats to established power structures and negotiat- ed orders in this proposed local integration of activities. If the reform is accepted there will have to be important organizational adaptations in the social and professional networks that surround municipal activities.

The Project Integration over sectorial borders through Local Boards

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(political decision making bodies at the district level) means that a new principle of organizing is introduced against very strong and well entrenched institutional structures. Activities should be coordinated towards the whole set of needs of the citizen or the district, rather than each need being given its standardized service through specialized hierarchies.

It is only natural that the City Council chose to have a trial period first and to postpone the decision on a full- scale change until an evaluation of the experiment had been made. The obvious period to choose is the election period, 3 years; the rules for the future had to be settled in time for the next election. One could harbour reason- able doubt as to what valid experience could be gained by conducting an experiment that was embedded in the old structure, in which the bulk of daily business was managed in the old ways. But on the other hand it is hardly possible to make such a radical change in a large organization without some demonstration of how it is supposed to work.

Two trial districts were chosen and a Local Political Board and its Officer (LBO) appointed for each of them to lead the work of integrating and coordinating sectorial activities at the district level. A central chief officer was appointed to lead the experiment from the City Hall. When the City Council took its decision it also stated that it would not accept extra costs for this experiment. Local resources in terms of personnel and office space would have to be used.

The objective for the experiment was not very clearly stated; to improve local democracy and efficiency, but everybody “just knew” that a lot of unnecessary parallel work is done locally due to the sectorial structure. Large resources could be freed for constructive use in the new unit. The authority of the LB0 was not very clear ei- ther. The question was whether he would be a “depart- ment head” or a coordinator without formal decision making powers.

The municipality in which this experiment with Local Boards is taking place is Uppsala (population 145,000 in 1980). The public sector is the dominating employer (municiplity, hospitals, 2 universities). The largest com- pany had 1,600 employees, the municipality 8,000.

A coalition of three parties formed the non-socialist majority when the decision was taken to go ahead with the experiment. Seven of the members of the Executive Committee are commissioners, i.e. full-time employees of the municipality (4 for the majority parties, 3 for the

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opposition). The majority commissioners have drafting responsibility for one area each (Finance, Urban, Social and Culture). The different departments and their polit- ical boards are grouped under these areas and all mat- ters from the departments pass these 4 commissioners on their way to the Executive Committe and the City Coun- cil, where political debates are held. The majority com- missioners have political secretaries to assist them in the drafting work. These political administrators tend to block access to the politicians for the “real” administra-

tors in City Hall. Charlie, the City Director, whom we shall meet later, being the administrative head of City Hall, found it difficult to get along with the “wall” of assistants that surrounded the most powerful politicians. The Commissioners, in turn, have mixed feelings about the drafting work, since the law says that decisions must be properly prepared, which means that a draft will have to be balanced in its statements. A draft therefore is not the medium for political statements that it might be thought to be.

The district in focus in this study is an area suffering from social problems. It has about 18,000 inhabitants and centers around a shopping center with all kinds of services, including baths, library, youth club etc. The district has about 900 municipal employees, about half of them in the social services and 350 in the schools. Due to special circumstances, the official reason being that the workload on the social services district was too heavy, the social services were not included in the exper- iment, but since they were organized as a district de- partment with a local political board, cooperation with the new organization was close throughout the trial pe- riod. The trial included schools, culture, libraries and recreation, which meant that the school department dominated in numbers and, with 4 school principals (who are known to enjoy considerable “autonomy” un- der the school legislation), also meetings between those with budget responsibility. Schools and social services are regulated by special legislation. The schools in partic- ular have strange features, like teachers being state em- ployees although they are employed by the municipality.

Method of Inquiry

After some interesting political processes and an election that resulted in a socialist majority, the trial period start- ed from January 1983. Charlie, who has a degree in law, was the central officer in charge of the experiment with

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local boards (LBs). He had a political committee to guide him. Anne, who has a degree in social work, was appointed as local board officer (LBO) in our district. Her job description was a little vague. It could be inter- preted as saying that she was a department head. The trouble was that she had no department to start with. She had the local board, some office space and a tele- phone.

The empirical material in this study consists of a num- ber of interviews over a two-year period with Charlie and Anne and all the documents that were produced in relation to the experiment. The focus is on how Anne and Charlie perceived problems and events over this pe- riod. It was not intended from the start of the interviews to focus attention on accounting. The interviews, which were very candid, were taped and analysed in sequence after the last interview in May 1985. Documents have been used in so far as they have been referred to in inter- views.

This means that a subjectivist perspective has been applied. The aim of this study is to understand how two actors in a changing organizational setting try to make sense of what is happening.

It is quite difficult to present the empirical material to the reader, since the main impression that it conveys to the present author is one of complexity and fragmenta- tion. The two social actors that we deal with were ‘ ‘thrown’ ’ into ambiguous situations and worked through a large number of “encounters” (Goffman) to create some kind of order. To describe that complexity and the sense of lack of control (never being able to complete a “project”) because of the multitude of other actors that had some control over some critical resource, is indeed difficult. A coherent and simple account tends to miss the very point of the problem. The approach chosen here is to select a small number of episodes that are supposed to illustrate the kind of interaction that is involved, and to divide the story into phases. None the less the following description of the process is complex and space-consuming. How does one describe complexi- ty in a simple way?

Chain of Events

In this section the main actors and an overview of the events of the empirical study are presented.

Charlie brought the decentralization issues to the at- tention of the Executive Committee on three occasions

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during 1981. In September he pointed out in a memo that the decentralization issues are in fact closely related to the design of the central administration. The Organi- zation Committee of -81 was appointed. The committee proposed that an experiment with local boards in two districts should be conducted from 1983. In September 1982 there were elections which resulted in a new (social- ist) majority. In November a coordinating group (lead- ing politicians and department heads) was appointed to lead the experiment. It had several meetings to design the project. In December two jobs as Local Board Offi- cer (LBO) for the trial period of three years were adver-

tized. Anne, who had been on maternity leave since May

1982, and who was about to return to work, was avai- lable for one of the LB0 posts when Charlie was scouting around for candidates. She had worked as department head in the 5th social district which coincided with the LB district we are focussing on. The LB0 job was a tem- porary one but Charlie said that there was a good chance that the new organization would be permanent. Anne describes herself as “not a very good administrator but I can lead work”. When routines start to function proper- ly she tends to get bored and wants to start working on a new problem. She also has a tendency to speak her mind on occasion, e.g. she thought that the 5th social district should be integrated in the LB-district and included in the experiment, and when the matter was discussed in the social district early in 1982 she had said so against the majority-to-be. Consequently she did not feel that she enjoyed the full political support of her LB when she took up the LB0 job.

The first year for the LB was to be one of planning and budgeting for 1984, when the LB would assume full budget responsibility. A precondition for budgeting is that the area of competence is defined. Thus the first part of 1983 was filled with negotiations with the sector boards/departments on what activities and personnel would come under LB jurisdiction and be included in the LB budget. In May 1983 Anne and her LB-chair- man could produce a list of matters to be handled by the LB. A substantial part of the proposed transfer of busi- ness was contested by the sector departments and had to be referred to the Executive Committee. The LB did not get all what it wanted. At about this time Charlie asked for an assistant to help him with the LB-experiment. He had difficulty in managing the LB project as well as his regular duties as City Director. In July he was given a

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choice: to work with the LB-experiment full time or to work as City Director full time. He chose the City Di- rector alternative.

In September 1983 the 4 department heads in the City Hall sent a formal letter to the Executive Committee proposing that the City Hall organization should be re- viewed. In November the Executive Committee ap- pointed Gus, a sector department head, for a 6-month period as a special investigator under a political commit- tee, to design the full scale LB organization after the trial period. In February 1984 the Executive Committee de- cided to call in a consultancy firm to review the City Hall organization.

In May 1984 both Gus and the consultancy firm pre- sented their reports. The two reports point in the same direction. From 1986 there will be a full-scale LB organi- zation covering the whole city territory, and the City Hall organization will be designed to match this new concept. Charlie now assumed that the process was irre- versible, regardless of the outcome of the coming elec- tions in September 1985. The old structure would be abandoned and the new one tuned to the LB idea.

The First Phase; Establishment: Charlie

In the first interview, in March -83, Charlie gave an ex- citing account of how the LB experiment had come about. It included a variety of political craftmanship as- pects that are of less importance here. The political as well as the administrative side of the organization had to be persuaded. It should be noted that one of the reasons why leading department heads supported the experi- ment, was because they agreed that it was possible to use the new well-functioning accounting system to break down the budget figures on a LB-basis. Every transac- tion is registered on several dimensions, including re- sponsibility center, down to the operative level. Thus all you have to do is to determine what work unit belongs to which LB and to transfer relevant sectoral services to the LBs. You can also design and redesign reports quite freely, due to the multidimensional registration of trans- actions and a powerful report generator.

The original proposal was that the experiment should include social, school, recreation, and culture services. After the election in September 1982 the new majority made one major change in the design: they excluded the social district from the experiment. Even though the ex-

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periment was still to be carried out, the intentions of the new majority were not at all certain. It was an official secret the there was internal disagreement on the forms of decentralization in the majority party. (Within or across sectors). There was also a host of different types of local units included in the package decision on decentral- ization (5 social districts, 9 community boards without executive powers and 2 local boards). For Charlie it was important to know what the ultimate intentions of the majority were and he pushed for some kind of statement, which no doubt annoyed its leaders since things were not ready for that yet. In February 1983 Charlie was satis- fied by the majority leader telling him that he saw the school district boards introduced by the majority party as a way of introducing some democracy into the school administration, but in the long run the majority was in favor of the LB model. Thus it seemed that there was a chance for the LB idea.

Another instrument for cross-sector coordination was the BUD, a central administrative committee that had

existed for about 10 years and was responsible for coor- dinating the activities of different departments directed towards young people and children. It had now been up- graded to include politicians. It had no operative respon- sibilities but had money to support integrated projects. BUD’s integrative objective was something that made it functionally similar to the LB. But since it was a central agency it would constitute a control channel parallel to the regular budgetary allocations of the Executive Com- mittee. Charlie thought that since some politicians were members of both bodies, they would ensure that policies towards the LBs would be coordinated. BUD could in fact be a useful vehicle, now and in the future, for reallo- cation of resources outside the regular budgetary process which is inflexible due to procedural rules and bonds to status quo.

Given that these issues regarding the central direction of the experiment had been clarified, the main task was to help the new LB to set up business and establish an identity. Charlie had been watching how the decentral- ization project in other municipalities had been conduct- ed with strong central coordination. He thought this was against the whole idea of decentralization. The organi- zing process should be managed locally. To get this pro- cess started, the next step would be to gather the local people together and go through what had happened so far in the City Hall, and then have them start working on what the responsibilities of the LBs should be in rela-

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tion to the sector departments. An agreement with the sector departments on responsibilities could then be dressed in budget terms. A primary task during the first year of the experiment is to produce a budget for the first year of LB operational responsibility (which would be the second year of the experiment).

The next interview with Charlie was held late in April -83. By then the meeting with the local people had taken place. Symbolically the meeting meant that responsibili- ty for the project was turned over to the new LB officers (LBO). Charlies comment was: “A little ruthless per- haps, but there is so little capacity to deal with this (pro- ject) centrally”.

(As mentioned above the new majority had promised experiments with local school boards in their election campaign. Charlie had sounded out the school depart- ment about what they were going to do about that. It was the department head that was supposed to develop that project, so Charlie left it. Had he believed it would be wise to include this school experiment in the general decentralization project, he could have pushed for that. He didn’t .)

The central board for democracy and information (DIN) which was charged with evaluating the LB project had started to worry about how to carry out this task. Charlie suggested taking it easy for a while and letting things take their natural course at least through the sum- mer. After the summer a hearing could’be arranged. Charlie said: “AS far as I can see the project is moving along. I have no overview of the details.”

There was one worry though. Money! There was not enough money set aside for the project. Charlie had his budget for the Central Office and there was some money for the LBs themselves (fees for the politicians), but none for the LB offices.

The authority of the LBOs is uncertain. The advertiz- ed LB0 jobs were so vaguely formulated that it is impos- sible to glean from the advertisment whether they are de- partment heads i. e. have decision making powers over local sector activities, or just “coordinators” i.e. the chains of command of the sectorial departments are un- broken.

When I reproached Charlie for this vagueness he said that it was a matter of getting union acceptance for the job descriptions. Besides he did not want to be too form- alistic about the interpretation of the content of the LB0 job. The responsibility of the LB0 is not to inter- vene in the operations of youth clubs, schools or libra-

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ries, but to answer for coordination e.g. budgeting and things like that. The intention is that those who hold budget responsibility in the sectors will form a coor- dinating group to prepare matters for the LB. Matters that are clearly sectorial will then be presented to the LB by a sector head e.g. a school principal or a librarian while matters concerning more than one sector would be presented by the LBO. But honestly speaking, Charlie said, “it was a matter of getting it past the teachers’ unions without loosing too much executive power.” The two LBOs are experienced and creative people. Charlie thinks that if they take on this challenge they will be bet- ter off than if every administrative detail had been form- alized. He says things like: “I suppose we have been a little frivolous” and “I guess we have left it to the LBO’s” .

It is all a matter of being resourceful and taking initia- tives. Charlie gives an example about the administration of teachers’ salaries: Formally the LBs cannot take deci- sions concerning teachers and principals. Their salaries are paid by state grants. The unions jealously protect their “state regulated posts”. The school legislaton reg- ulates this and says that every municipality must have a School Board dealing with these matters. But in practice there are a lot of things e.g. reporting teaching hours, sick leaves, substitute teachers etc that could be done lo- cally. The problem is to convince the School Board. Anybody with a little imagination will realize that it is not likely that a School Board will decide against the ad- vice of its department. The real decision on this issue will be taken inside the School Department.

The two LBOs got word that the working committee of the School Board was going to hold a meeting to work out its position on what the School Board would be will- ing to leave to the LBs during the trial period. They man- aged to get invited to the meeting to argue their case for decentralization. Reporting teaching hours is a contro- versial issue; some believe that it should be done cen- trally because there are so many different clauses in the agreements with the teachers’ unions and local people do not have the competence to interpret everything proper- ly, while others believe that the reporting should be done locally - in touch with real life. By being present at the crucial meeting the LBOs could strike a bargain, by re- sponding on the spot to the arguments from the cen- tralists. Charlie considered this a good example of how an informal position can be exploited by approaching the real power centers directly. With a formalized posi-

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tion, you would have to deal with formal decision mak- ing bodies.

Charlie did not know Anne’s views on her formal sta- tus. He had lunch with her some days ago, after she had gone through intensive training in the technicalities of the budgeting/accounting system, but she did not bring it up then. The intensive course had taught her how, with some technical assistance, to design her own report structure. Charlie repeated that in his opinion the main task before the summer was to formulate an ordinance in accordance with the agreements with the sectorial boards on jurisdiction, and then to work out a budget that confirmed what had been agreed.

Admittedly there are problems in this. The propensity to let go of people and budget money differs between boards. The “culture” side presents few problems. They have district based libraries which are natural units to transfer. “Recreation” also has a decentralized structure and an organizational culture that is conducive to de- centralization, even if there seems to be some trouble with the parks division. For the “School” sector there is plenty of trouble and for the “Social” sector it has been politically settled now that the 5th district will remain outside the experiment, but it is also written into the de- cision that from 1986 the social district will be integrated into the LB. (N B there is no decision that the LBs will exist from 1986).

The BUD committee has decided to call the LBOs to their meetings, which was an important recognition of their status. Furthermore the BUD has funded a project in Anne’s area and decided that the money should go to the LB budget. There were some problems here since

some thought that the social district should be granted . the money. The LB will cooperate “closely” with the so- cial district. It will work because Anne is a former officer of the social district and she knows the people there.

The principals are on the warpath against the School Department, at the same time that Anne is trying to bring them into the LB fold. There will no doubt be complications.

Charlie is keeping a low profile now. During the first couple of months of the trial period he had day-to-day contact with the new LBOs, but now he has reduced his presence to browsing through agendas etc and being available should they need help. They should be left a- lone for now.

Charlie’s worry now is about the political support of the experiment from the new majority. He has an itch-

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ing feeling that it is only lip service so far. The new chairman of the Executive Committee has indicated, ai- though not explicitly, that he is annoyed by Charlie hav- ing pushed the LB project forward before the new major- ity had settled its internal differences, and that he has thus created something of a fait accompli. The horizon for the experiment is now two years away. By early 1985 the politicians will have to take their decision on how they want to structure their organization during the next period. Things have to be settled in good time before the election in September. Charlie describes the situation as a period of quiet learning; the idea of local integration is accepted by many. The problem is to do it. That burden is carried by the local people. They need reinforcement. It is obvious, for instance, that Anne need an assistent. In fact a proposal to that effect is up before the Executive Committee, but they are not acting on it.

Charlie’s analysis of the situation is that the current experiment does not present much of a problem for the sectorial departments, but a full-scale situation will call for a great deal of unlearning. The unions have started to worry about future organizational problems as a con- sequence of the LBs. It would mean great changes for them since they are so centralized, but it is curiously quiet on their side so far. They will become more involv- ed when proposals are presented about the division of responsibilities between the sector departments and the LBs. Before decisions are taken on organizational changes of this kind there will have to be negotiations with the unions, and since there is no local competence yet to deal with these issues the negotiations will have to be done centrally.

The press has been quiet as well. There is no public debate. Summing up the lessons learned during the first 4 months Charlie says: 1 We have an accounting system that can cope with this geographical division of sectorial activities, which is a great strength compared to other cities. 2 We have been quite ruthless in decentralizing respon- sibility. Hopefully that is the right way to go in the long run. 3 We have missed on information. It is not enough with brochures and things like that. 4 There is a lack of clear political will behind the project so far. This has hampered the LBOs in their contacts with sectorial departments.

Charlie cannot help worrying about the LBOs work- ing out unique solutions to problems with the result that

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people would not be treated equally and that accounting reports would be difficult to compare. On the other hand the whole idea of decentralization is just that: to adapt to local conditions and stimulate participation. He is deter- mined not to interfere unnecessarily in the organizing process.

Anne When the first interview was held with Anne in March, she had just been appointed formally to the job. There had been some trouble with her appointment (probings about her political sympathies, less then full support from the decision makers) and she did not know what her authority was.

Anne saw the LB in her district as the result of a long process. There had been a committee to coordinate local activities in the district some years ago. It did not work because discussions ended in arguments over which de- partments had any money to put into projects. Then came this new legislation on “local organs” which made Charlie’s new initiative possible.

The district is a problem area. An unusually large proportion of the population are clients of the social dis- trict, schools have classes with more than 10 nationali- ties, there are empty flats and a high turnover rate among tenants. There are also drug problems. There are some villa areas but appartment houses dominate. The district centers around the lo-year-old “Centre” with shops, post office, banks, library, church, swim- ming pool, youth club and a variety of other public ser- vices.

Anne saw her first task as establishing more regular communications across sector borders. One thing that you discover then is the vast difference in levels of activi- ty between sectors and the differences in culture.

The social district has about 3-400 employees and the 3 schools are of about the same size together, while culture is represented by a part-time secretary in charge of bookings for the study rooms of the Centre and the theatre. As for organizational culture, they talk different languages and about different things as well! So far Anne has had a lot of practical detail to deal with. She had to start from scratch! There was an office available, but it was necessary to borrow furniture and to use per- sonalcontactstogetall kindsofhelp, e.g. copyingcouldbe done in the nearby school or in the social district office. There was some money for typing help etc. but most of

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the time you had to beg, steal or borrow. These prob- lems were caused by the basic principle not to allow any extra“bureaucracy” in the experiment.

Most of the time during the first interview Anne talk- ed about external relations. She would like to set up some kind of representative body from clubs and other voluntary associations in the district to have somebody to talk to. There had also been discussion about a local radio channel. Then there was the problem of getting the LB started. It had had 3 meetings so far. Some members were quite new to politics while others were old foxes. Members of the LB had signed up for work parties on issues according to interest ( traffic, education, children, the Centre etc), to work out policies. The agenda had been dominated by the submission for comment on plans etc from the sector boards and City Hall. Anne found it difficult to present items on the agenda at the same time as she took notes for the minutes.

The important thing now is not to get stuck on details or procedural issues, but to think in terms of results, to determine what is important and what is not, to establish policies in different areas and to establish the borders of an identifiable LB unit.

The LB, quite by chance, had been handed a golden opportunity to establish itself as a champion of its dis- trict, when the question of an extra school pavilion in the district was submitted for comment. The LB majority (social democrats) recommended the largest and most expensive alternative, originally proposed by the com- munists in the City Council. After some debate, this al- ternative had won the following City Council vote. Anne worried about where the money to run the pavilion would come from and could think of better ways of using that kind of resources.

Anne had great plans. A key word she used was “un- conventional solutions”. There was a lot of good will to build on; the board (LB) was enthusiastic and especially the chairman was dedicated to achieving something of value; maybe he was a little too enthusiastic sometimes. Local sector people were enthusiastic as well.

One difficulty was that decisions were taken on diffe- rent levels in different sector departments, some being more decentralized than others. There were also worries among personnel that they would lose job security on transfer from the sector department to the LB. And you actually had to tell people that they were supposed to maintain all kinds of professional contacts with collegues after such a transfer.

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“Practical realities” were pressing. The thing to do now was to design a local budgeting/accounting system. This was no easy task since the different sectors have dif- ferent procedures to start with, e.g. schools work accord- ing to the school year while the rest use the calendar year as planning period.

Analysis: Establishing a Reorganization Project

In the first phase of the project Charlie is the main actor and during the first interviews he described what a jun- gle of coordinating structures there was to consider in setting up the LB experiment. There are very many channels through which signals can be sent to counteract or support the LB idea. In such a complex context it al- most seems easier to establish new entities than to liqui- date old ones. Now and then, at lo-year intervals, a committe to review the central administration is set up. It seems that the main task then is to clear away a sed- iment of integrative mechanisms that do not function properly any more.

It should be noted that Charlie sees the organizing process as the setting up of a contract that specifies the division of responsibilities between the units. Budgeting means calculating the cost consequences of that con- tract.

To Anne the world looks different. She is trying to de- line her responsibilities and those of the LB by reference to external relations. Uncertainty dominates her percep- tions and she believes that if she can design an account- ing system for the LB in which she can register all “deals” with the sector department, she will eventually know what her organization is. She is not active yet, just preparing.

Second Phase; Cutting Strings: Charlie

Just before the summer holidays in 1983 Charlie sub- mitted a progress report on the LB project. He pointed out that communication between the political level and the department level on the coordination of the LB proj- ect had not been functioning properly. To remedy this he offered to stay on as coordinator of the project, as be- fore in addition to his ordinary duties as City Director, if he was given an assistent to help him. The Executive Committee offered him either full time as project coordi- nator or full time as City Director (no assistant).

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To appreciate the subtlety of this offer the reader should know that a conflict had been building up over the role of the political secretaries who help Commis- sioners in their drafting, and who consequently block ac- cess to Commissioners by regular City Hall staff. Char- lie was the one most affected by this. He was also ap- proaching the end of his second contract period (6 years) as City Director. Furthermore there was talk about a reorganization project for the City Hall.

Charlie decided to remain as City Director. (After 12 years of service one can retire with a decent pension.) He withdrew formally from the project in November 1983. At the same time Gus was appointed on a 6-month as- signment as a “visionary”, to draft how the next step in

the decentralization process should be designed. He took leave from his job as Head of the Recreation depart- ment. The instructions for the assignment were interest- ing because they contained the first clear declaration of political will as to what kind of structure was the one most preferred for the future (LBs). Looking back on his last months with the project Charlie is satisfied that there has been a decision on the area of jurisdiction for the LB. There was disagreement on a number of points but the Executive Committee ruled on these. There was also trouble in drafting budgets. The sectorial departments were often unwilling to lose personnel to the LBs. Since the City applies a lump sum budget system they then had to transfer a corresponding sum of money instead. This will undoubtedly create budgetary pressures on the departments, more than if actual people had been mov- ed from one budget to another. There were great diffi- culties in estimating what kind of administrative appara- tus the LBs need, since there is no precedent to refer to. The politicians of the LBs are still in good spirits. Char- lie likes the independent and creative leadership of the chairman of Anne’s LB.

It is difficult to see any specific effects on democracy though, even if the LBs provide a sobering contrast to the City Council. If the LBs manage to solve a few prob- lems close to the people while the City Council, whose debates are broadcast by the local radio station, remain in the old confrontational mode, people may start mak- ing comparisons that might turn out to the disadvantage of the Council.

Anne

The next time we met (early summer -83), Anne de-

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scribed the present situation as characterized by “hard realities”. In all her contacts with the departments (heads included) there was the encouraging tap on the shoulder: “Great! Exciting things you are doing out there! ’ ’ But when the conversation turned from the great visions to real action and budget figures the going got much tougher. Some people pretend they don’t understand what it’s all about (transferring resources from department budgets to the LB budget) or they e- vade issues or just won’t play. It is not part of their job; they don’t have time.

But then again there were individuals who understood what Anne was talking about and tried to help. She and her LB0 colleague worked with these kind of individuals whenever possible. For example there is a controller in the school department who has been a great help in sort- ing out practical problems, and a personnel assistent in the same department who was designing solutions for personnel problems, that Anne didn’t even know exist- ed.

The central Personnel Department just wouldn’t

play. “It is not our job to help you” they said. Culture and Libraries have posed no visible problems

so far, but Recreation, which had been relatively coope- rative on the middle management level, had given Anne one of the real conflict cases. The Recreation Board had taken a firm decision that the “park teams” (the people who mow lawns and keep the sports facilities and parks of the district in order) were to remain with the Recrea- tion Department. Anne thought that they should belong to the LB. Consequently both sides make their budgets including the “park teams” and it would be up to the Executive Committee to decide when they make their budget decision.

Anne did not know yet what changes were necessary in the management accounting system and the personnel system to get the right LB report structure. The Con- troller’s Department, a reliable supporter, had promised to set aside enough time to get the local systems in order. Since some decisions about who is responsible for what were unsettled, uncertainties still remain. Since the LB would not meet during the summer, Anne hoped to work without much disturbances for a while.

Anne had to deal with a great many people when she tried to extract resources from departments to put into her own budget. Her tactics had been to “cut as many strings as possible”, to make the LB self contained. It won’t do to have to make LB decisions contingent upon

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sector board approval. It just is not possible to integrate activities across sectors by using temporary or condition- al agreements between sectors. The School Department would want things done one way and the Recreation De- partment another. It would be impossible to get results that way. “Take for instance”, Anne said, “the fact that there has been talk about us not getting any resouces for personnel administration out here. We could buy ser- vices from the central office they say. But think about what would happen! Schools would like to have their person- nel matters managed in one way, Recreation in another. As a consequence we would have to report using 3-4 different versions of forms or terminal programs. That would mean more work than if we handled the whole thing ourselves’ ’ .

Anne still did not know what her formal powers were, but she had stopped worrying. People with budget re- sponsibility formed an informal management team that

met regularly, and it seemed natural for her to be chair- man or boss in that group. There was no problem about the municipal people, but the principals are state-muni- cipal and cannot be subordinate to a municipal head. Anne thought that the coming budget decision would clear things up, because it will automatically impose a hierarchy of budget responsibilities.

The organization issues facing the LB concerning how operations under its jurisdiction should be managed, had not yet been treated by the LB in session (was not yet ripe for political decision). Consequently the head of the central Personnel Department won’t cooperate. His reasoning goes like this; Since there is no formal decision on organization and job descriptions yet, he cannot start work on his part (which seems to be to set salaries), and since his part has not even been started yet, there is little chance that we will be ready before the LB becomes ope- rational with its own budget. It is therefore likely that the start of the operative phase will be postponed one year; consequently there isn’t any hurry to deal with LB personnel matters after all!

Anne was of the opinion that she can live without knowing whether she is the librarian’s boss or not, but who was going to be the supervisor of the school psycho- logists? (There are psychologists in the social district as well and people with similar functions in the Recreation sector - and they largely work with the same clients.) In this case the school psychologists wanted to report to the LB0 workwise, but the principals disagreed. And the school nurses! Should they be responsible to the sector or

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should we organize a nurse unit serving all sectors (again, same clients!). And the school curators.. .? There were a lot of unsolved problems like this. Just recently there had been a decision on who belonged where (ex- cept for those where there was disagreement) and it is only then that you can start to integrate the activities of real people.

These conflicts about organizational affiliation were not so much a matter of professionalism contra com- munity (e.g. do you lose professional competence when working in a group of other professions or do you broad- en your perspectives by joint efforts to solve problems) so much as purely emotional problems, Anne said. Take the park teams! (Although not professionals in the ordi- nary sense!) It was quite clear from the beginning that they should belong to the LBs. The LB and Recreation were in agreement on that. The park jobs are typical LB activities. The park teams could be coordinated with the janitors of the schools to mow school lawns etc. But then the team supervisors turned sour. They had gone through 3 reorganizations during the last few years they said, and couldn’t stand another one. Furthermore, leaving Recreation for the LB would be like a “desert journey” to them. They got the union on their side and the Recreation Board did not dare go against the unions. The decision said that for the time being (1984) the park teams should remain in Recreation.

Both the white caller union (SKTF) and the academ- ics (SACO) had locals in the district by now, but the blue collar union (SKAF) saw no reason to set up a local chapter now that the park teams were not being trans- ferred. “There are simply too few of their members out here”.

Anne had some contact with the unions, e.g. to in- form about the budget work, but since she had no man- date to negotiate (the LBs not being operational until 1984), formal contacts were handled by the City Hall. This was one thing that she would have liked to have help with from the Personnel Department, but now she had to design the routines for union contacts herself.

Anne felt a little unhappy about not being active enough in seeking union contacts so far. There was the risk of breeding suspicion about her intentions. A recent information meeting she had was a case in point:

It all started when she and her LB chairman called upon the chairman of the Executive Committee to complain about the lack of resources and the need to hire staff for the paper work that the LB generated. The an-

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swer to their plea was that the LB will have to make use of local resources and reallocate locally, not from the Cit- y Hall to the LB. Anne knew that there was a local shortage of office personnel already, but she decided to put on record that there was no local slack. Therefore she went round to all the local secretaries and typists ask- ing them how they fill their working days. All to prove her point: there was no excess office personnel. Before long there was a sharply worded letter from the SKTF about her “investigation of the working conditions of of- fice staff ’ without prior consultation. S,o she called in the representatives of SKTF and SAC0 to inform them what it was all about.

The SAC0 representative was a psychologist and she was worried about her own transfer to the LB. Anne had to assure her that the transfer would not mean that she wasn’t allowed to maintain all the professional contacts she had before. This was a union representative! She should know better than to imagine that she would not be allowed to cooperate with whomever she wants. (But isn’t it true that sector departments are isolated from each other - live their own lives?) “Yes, in a way, but to imagine that professionals would not be allowed to cooperate as much as they want! The whole idea of LBs is to cooperate across sectors! But one should be careful here! People are guarding their professionalism. One should not split up groups in a way that make people feel they are losing something. Of course it is difficult for psychologists to identify with librarians . . . but.. . Well there are problems here”.

Anyway the school psychologists did not pose a prob- lem of this kind. There are 3 of them, and if they are joined with the 1.5 psychologists in the social district they would form a professional work unit.

There were language barriers between sector depart- ments as well. You meet them every day! For instance,

the LB management group met the other day in Anne’s office to discuss what could be done about school child- ren littering and breaking things in part of the Centre close to where music classes were held. Several depart- ments had offices in that corridor including the munici- pal company that owned the property. It had complain- ed. The common sense suggestion was made that the teachers would have to tell the kids to stay away from that corridor and to stop littering. Then the principal said that they could not do that because it was public property.

Somebody said that it was not public property, well

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most of it anyway, the passage to the post office might be public property. Then there was a heated discussion about what the kind of property had to do with the issue anyway. The schoool should teach children to behave no matter what kind of property it was. Anne explained that principals tend to divide the world into school prop- erty over which they have control and public property over which they do not have control. If you are keen to defend your territory the first rule is to be aware of where the borders are.

BUD (the central committee that allocates project mon- ey to activities directed towards youth and children) had allocated some money to the LB. Anne had borrow- ed Sven from Recreation to manage the BUD-money. He was actually a replacement case (he had to be taken out of his work unit at Recreation because he did not get along with his collegues). He takes care of all the applica- tions for BUD-money from sports clubs, invalid organi- sations, churches and municipal units, evaluates them, finds combinations and initiates new projects. He was really doing a wonderful job, but sometimes he got a lit- tle overenthusiastic and tended to bully people. Then Anne could haul him in and mediate before things got too bad. That could not happen in a large hierachy - things would get out of hand before top managers noti- ced what was going on. Not so in an LB. This BUD-mon- ey tends to generate integrative activities even if it cau- ses minor disputes in the LB, due to the fact that organi- zations that apply are more or less related to political parties.

There was also an urban planning project for the dis- trict to improve the environment (in a wide sense). The programs that are implemented under that project mean cooperation with the social district.

The external anchorage of the LB was not progressing as hoped, even if there was movement in the right direc- tion. Sven was doing research on what associations etc there are in the district that could be involved in setting up a representative assembly. Nothing had come of the idea of a local radio channel. On the other hand the edu- cational radio channel was conducting an experiment with citizen participation in urban planning.

There had been a formal decision that the social dis- trict will be integrated with the LB from 1986, and Anne had been given authorization to hire an assistent. Things are moving along.

I asked Anne how far into the future she thought she could see now. She answered that there are two different

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planes here; the visions and practical matters. As to vi- sions she could see quite far when it came to establishing the assembly, to initiate integrative activities, and a dy-

namic development among those that work for the LB. She had a rather clear view of what processes were neces-

sary there. Then there were practical matters, like producing a

budget proposal and conducting day to day business, where the view was much more limited. She felt that she

had a psychological blockage against working with many unsolved problems at the same time. She had to apply priorities; now I will get this ready first and then I can deal with the next etc. There were so many unfamiliar problems and sometimes she wondered whether she had the competence to handle them all.

Her first worry for the future was that she will not be able to “cut enough strings from the sector departments to achieve independence”. She had a feeling that sector departments tended to hold on to important strings for control and then they will be able to say; Look! The LBs did not work! Let us return to normal! The budget was very important in this respect. “Administrative “prop- er procedure” can also be used to tie us up”.

There was also the nightmare that after the first month of operations under its own budget, the LB would not be able to pay proper salaries to those it employed, or some other foul up of the same magnitude. That would be a disaster!

In her low moments Anne wondered whether the polit- ical majority really wanted the LBs. When optimistic she explained it all in terms of temporary communica- tion problems in City Hall - the majority being preoc- cupied with the overall financial situation and with the deficit of the Social Department.

Charlie backed up the LBs whole-heartedly and tried to keep them on the agenda. But he had this problem with the chairman of the Executive Committee and he had his ordinary job to attend to. He had been offered to work full time with the LB experiment but chose to stay in his ordinary post, probably because a substitute would not “fill his shoes” which would mean that he would have to supervise it anyway.

It was Charlie’s idea that the LBs should approach the Executive Committee on the problems of drawing the administrative borderlines between the sector depart- ments and the LBs. Anne had prepared a memo (“terri- bly unstructured”) and sent it to the Committee for their ruling on disputed areas, but it was her belief that they

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would “sit on it” until they saw what the budgetary con- sequences would be.

The School Department also made an issue out of the differences on borderlines, but they based their argu- ment on the requirements of the School Act. Neither had they taken the consquences of their own statements in their budget! “Look”, Anne says, “here they say that the school psychologists will be transferred to the LB but in the budget the have not separated the costs to be in- cluded in our budget”!

Halfway through the preparatory year Anne was preoccupied with “cutting strings” and organizing through budget work.

Analysis: Cutting Strings

“Cutting strings” means cutting off formal relations with other departments and tying units to the LB. This must be done in a fragmented way. First one has to dis- cover activities that should be transferred, then define them and locate them in the budget of the department that is now in charge of them. Then one has to push and pull until the department lets go. Some units are easy to handle, like the local library that is transferred as a block; others are difficult because their costs are hidden in lump sums.

This raiding of the departments by Anne initiates all kinds of defense mechanisms. Anne uses practical argu- ments to persuade and then follows up with the budget consequences.

It is very difficult to keep organized in this phase. There are so many unsettled deals at the same time, and the departments do not mind if Anne forgets some of them.

Charlie does not participate very much in this phase. He is leaving the project. To the extent that he considers the issues, he considers them part of the settlement of de- partmental responsibilities and he is not very interested in details.

Third Phase; Legitimation: Charlie

When the last interview with Charlie was held in May 1984, two important reports on organization had just been presented to the Executive Committee. Charlie was very pleased. He saw them both as pointing in the same direction: that the future organization of the city

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would be based on LBs. Uppsala had come a long way

towards a “cultural revolution” since this project had been initiated about two years ago.

Gus’s report on the decentralization issues recom- mended 10 LBs to cover the whole territory of Uppsala, except the city centre which should be managed by the remaining sectorial boards (this Charlie viewed. as an untenable position), from 1986. The consultancy report on the organization of the City Hall was still more in- teresting. It was initiated by the department heads (in- cluding Charlie), writing to the Executive Committee and complaining about unclear responsibilities between the secretaries of the commissioners and the departments of the City Hall. The report said that the commissioners wanted to get rid of drafting responsibilities because they took too much time away from political work. There were also too many special committees which made city management unwieldy and created coordination prob- lems. According to the report the leadership function of the Executive Committee becomes more pronounced in an organization where services to citizens are mainly handled by LBs. The LB organization meant that opera- tional decisions would be made in a more market orient- ed fashion and that the function of the City Hall depart- ments would be to support the Executive Committee in its strategic and coordinating functions. They would also provide specialized administrative expertise of a kind that no LB could afford.

The consultants were bold enough to state that man- agement control by the Executive Committee should be achieved mainly by monitoring outcomes (which means that planning is played down as a control instrument). Furthermore the recommendation was to return to the old ways of drafting, e.g. the preparation process ends with a staff draft recommending a decision to the Execu- tive Committee.

The general principles of the reports were not very original, but they meant a revolutionary change in the way city affairs would be managed. The leadership func- tion would be divided into a central and a local one. The central staff was given a clearer role and leading politi- cians would have more time for politics. The most im- portant thing however was that people started to realize, after some initial confusion, that this would mean the end of the age old functional or sectorial organization of the city. (It would also mean that responsibility and ac- countability is stressed at the expense of planning.)

There were some dangers as Charlie saw it. This new

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organization could become too efficient - campaign promises might be implemented although they were not intended to be. Sectorial politicians and department heads might find that they could save some part of their kingdoms by joining the central forces. This would strengthen the power of the Executive Committee - maybe too much.

Charlie was not exactly jubilant, but very satisfied. Things were pointing in the right direction and the pro- cess was irreversible by now. He praised the City Con- troller who had supported the decentralization scheme from the start, the head of the social department and a small group of intellectually stimulating officers at the City Hall who served as sparring partners. It sounded like a farewell statement and it was. Charlie had decided to take early retirement within less than a year.

Charlie surveyed the local level. The girls (LBOs) out there had done a fantastic job. They had gained status and the other department heads now viewed them as col- leagues. He admitted that he had been a little worried about Anne from the start. Her administrative schooling was not the best and she still had problems formulating drafts, but she had grown with the job. She had realized that her position demanded that she had to behave as a department head - that she was selling her part of Upp- sala. There was confidence in her behaviour now.

There was some uncertainty about how the political parties would adapt, and react, to the new organization. The outcome of the September election was uncertain and the LBs representation (e.g. whether it should be proportional to the outcome in the district or to the out- come for the whole city) might become an issue in the election campaign.

The main task for Anne now was to concentrate atten- tion on implementing the LB ideas.

Anne

In May 1984, when the LB had been operational for some months and the two reports (Gus’s on the future LB structure and the consultants’ on the City Hall) were available, everything pointed to LB survival. But Anne was showing concern through the whole interview about the legitimacy of the LBs and her own role in the eyes of sector department heads and the City Hall.

When asked to describe what had happened since we last met, Anne talked about the outcome of the budget process. The parks teams would remain under Recrea-

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tion for 1984, but only because they had made so much fuss about it. Other borderline cases had been settled but the Controller’s department had not had the stamina to calculate all the budget effects.

There were no great problems with the budget how- ever. Anne pointed out that she and her fellow LB0 were called to appear before the Budget Committee like oth- er department heads. The only problem was the deter- mined resistance of the social democratic majority to new posts in the LB office. Again this anti-bureaucracy ideology! This was something that the sector depart- ments had used to defend their territory. All of them re- sisted letting go of personnel or money. It was most pro- nounced in the School Department. The Social Depart- ment verbally endorsed the idea that the LBs should have the resources they needed, but in practice there were no results because they had enough trouble with their own deficit. In Recreation there was a culture that was very positive and that was where the LBOs could get some of the help they needed. Culture and Libraries are small and specialized. They paid lip service to the LB idea, but, again little practical results. They fought for their budget like others using the not-create-another-bu- reaucracy argument when it suited them.

The outcome of the budget process was that Anne got some project money for personnel but no authority to create new posts. She had managed to extract money from a training budget in Personnel and to use that mon- ey for temporary solutions. She had also been success- ful in taking in people who had problems in other de- partment (an aching back, relational problems) and bor- rowing people to help out temporarily and then extend the stay.

There were several benefits in a small group working as a team, but there were drawbacks as well. If more than two people are sick at the same time, there is a cri- sis. Anne herself often worked more than 60 hours a week.

What about the LB? “Well, it has the same appetite for paper as other boards! We tried to reduce the paper work - verbal presentations, not copying everything for everybody - but they protested. It seems as though they need the written documents for the work in their party groups. We have to find a better way of doing this”.

Anne thought that the most important change since we last met was that people were beginning to say that they worked for the LB instead of for the baths or the school department. Anne thought that this was due to

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the fact that one can observe the whole chain of events in the LB organization, from initiative to action. It was al- so a good thing that the LB can see if things don’t work. You can’t hide your fiascos out here. This gives a special meaning to responsibility.

Anne was not satisfied with the management group, i.e. the more or less informal group of those with budget responsibility to the LB. It did not work as a planning unit or as a unit that prepared matters for the LB. It was more like a discussion club where members represented their unit.

Anne also had a bad conscience about the workload not permitting her to be out there with the operative units as much as she would have liked to; to tell people that they are doing a good job and be available to any- body with a problem. On the other hand Anne thought that she had to work on policy matters and avoid being bogged down in detail. Her idea for the moment was to let the details be, and to deal with crises as they arose.

The school side was the problem now - not that it dom- inates the LB agenda - there are actually very few

school matters in the LB, but school people were so diff- cult to cooperate with. For instance the (central) school department was against LBs from the start. They want- ed school district boards instead (i.e. decentralization within the department). Now that they had realized that the LBs were here to stay, they had adjusted their attitu- de. They said that they had great respect for the integrity of the LB. “We don’t want to come charging in and up- set all your plans, so we carefully avoid doing anything or having any ideas about your LB district”. Anne was uncertain about their real motives. It was obviously a comfortable solution to avoid getting involved.

Speculating about the future Anne referred to the two reports (by Gus and by the consultants) on the future LB and City Hall organisation. The reports seemed to have great symbolic value. Charlie saw them as a triumph. This had been his pet project and the reports confirmed and extended his ideas. She didn’t know what would happen to Charlie now. He would probably fade away from her horizon.

There was still trouble with the Personnel Depart- ment, even though it had changed somewhat. Anne gave a number of examples of its legalistic approach and how it defended its territory. Personnel thought that by dele- gating personnel matters to people with budget responsi- bility the LB had shown that it found personnel matters unimportant. There was still a lot of centralistic thinking

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in Personnel, even if there had been a radical change since last year.

Anne told stories that illustrated how Culture was dif- ficult to deal with because its officers were specialized (e.g. experts on hanging paintings or artists’ taxes) and therefore not very useful locally. There were also prob- lems because Procurement, a central staff unit, had signed agreements with suppliers on behalf of the whole municipality and was running an expensive trans- portation service for other departments.

When asked about the important things she had learn- ed so far, Anne first talked about the Executive Commit- tee. It should have made a decision from the start in- structing the other departments to help the LBs. As it turned out now Anne and her LB0 colleague had no authority to ask for help. They had to use informal chan- nels to get what they needed. This caused friction and they were accused of not using proper procedure. The LBOs should have worked on both planes, formal and informal. They should have been much tougher with the department heads, not backing off and going directly to cooperative people in the departments when they did not get endorsement from their heads.

The result was that the LBOs lost in legitimacy, being looked at as “small girls playing in the back yard”. Only recently had Anne realized the importance of selling her- self and her job to the department heads: to dress up, put on make up and assert herself as a competent person doing a qualified job when she met them. She regretted that it had to be that way, but she had accepted the rules of the game.

The department heads are the key figures. They send signals that are important to department people! Until they say OK, it is not considered legitimate to divert de- partment time or resources to help the LBOs. Look how little the training bureau at the Personnel Department has done to set up training programs for LB work! And the Health service bureau (health service for city em- ployees)! It did not even know that there was a thing call- ed LB! It was impossible to book time for one of the girls here to see a doctor because the LB does not exist in their register!

It was also difficult to handle unions. There are great differences between them. They are all centralistic, but they have different traditions. The teachers’ union is suspicious, maybe because they are used to foul play?

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Analysis: Legitimation

In this phase a dominating concern for Charlie as well as Anne was legitimation. For Charlie the two reports on the future organization was confirmation that his ideas would survive even after his resignation. Even if he per- sonally had lost the power struggle in the City Hall his ideas had won. It was legitimate to withdraw.

The interview with Anne which was the longest in the series and was held after some months of operational ex- perience, centered on the workload, cultural difference between departments and the legitimacy problems of the LBOs. She had formed a basis for her actions. She re- presented something and could worry about sticking to her budget. The episodes that she used to illustrate the kind of problems she was dealing with were quite nu- merous and rich in variety. These episodes are meaning- ful, obviously, in relation to the activities they concern, but they are also meaningfully related to the accounting discourse! Once there had been a decision on whose budget an item belonged to, there was a basis for action. The entering of the item into the accounting system is the confirmation of an agreement or a decision taken by a source of authority. Having something in one’s budget

means that one represents something, which in turn means that one has to behave accordingly and that one is anxious for confirmation by being recognized as an actor in the social network.

The Fourth Phase; Organizing for Efficiency: Charlie

Charlie was no longer involved in the LB project and was not interviewed during 1985.

Anne

The final interview with Anne was in March 1985. Now Anne was preoccupied with the internal organization of the LB office and her troubles with the school depart- ment.

Again, she brought up the management group, i.e. the group of people who have budget responsibility in the LB area. It does not work! It is like a discussion club. Those with budget responsibility should have authority to make decisions and commit their part of the sector to joint projects etc. It is a matter of administrative efficien-

cy - how to move matters from idea to decision and

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implementation. Anne wanted to initiate a discussion in the group on this issue, but it seemed as though the school people prefer to evade. Her idea was to have someone responsible for each sector with authority to commit the sector to cooperative efforts and see to it that things got done. Anne had worked out a memo on the issue. It had been amended several times. It said that the LB organization would grow to about 700 (excl. teach- ers) when the social district is integrated in 1986 and that there is a need for structure in the management group which until now has not had “an operative character” (and which might grow to 50 people if the present crite- ria for membership are applied).

The problem was that in the school sector there are 4 equals (the principals), who have difficulty in accepting that one will be “primus inter pares”. Anne thought that schools were difficult to integrate because they have a different culture. Hierarchy is important to them. There are great differences in status between different catego- ries of personnel and between categories of teachers as well. A real class society! The school board has always been so far away, but now the LB is close by with mem- bers having children in the schools and consequently knowing a lot about problems there. The principals were not used to being scrutinized this way. They felt threat- ened, and with executive power close by they had a lot to lose.

The management group has to be small to work con- structively; the present one didn’t. It just talked. Mem- bers represent their sector and the group was unable to serve as an instrument for integration. You need deci- sion making power to get things done! And resources to draft decisions. A limited number of people should in- vestigate and draft decisions and move things upwards and downwards. It should be clearly stated who they are. As the situation was now, only Anne had any offi- cial responsibility. That was unreasonable! The sectors have great power and you cannot control activities from an isolated LB top. You have to have instruments in the shape of people who penetrate sector activities and are committed to the implementation of LB decisions.

Merging with the social district next year will not be as troublesome as it was with the other sectors. Partly because the “central powers” are weakened now. Last week the Executive Committee decided that there will be 14 LBs covering the whole territory of Uppsala from 1986 and the person in charge of that operation will be the Head of the Social Department, a firm believer in

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the LB cause. That’s it! No return! Now everybody will know that the train is leaving towards decentralization and that they had better get on. The situation has chang- ed! (In what ways?) Now that the LBs become important nominations by the political parties for the next election period will be important. There will be more influential politicians on the LBs. The LBs will be power centres.. .

well, of course the Executive Committee will remain the centre.

(What’s this I hear about your LB chairman?) “He quit. He was burnt out, you know. Felt he neglected the family. He thought he could not take any more. He worked 110% for the LB. Too enthusiastic! He came on as a steam roller. There were people who found him inconvenient. He didn’t think he got the backup from the central politicians that he needed and, in fact he didn’t. They probably thought that he was somewhat unreliable. So they didn’t listen to him.”

The new chairman is not so daring - more the stew- ardship type. Anne is not sure that a steward is what the LB needs at the moment. It could probably work if the management group took on the creative role and if the chairman is trusted by the Executive Committee.

Towards the end of this last interview Anne was asked to recapitulate what had happened.

She started with efficiency and democracy. One shouldn’t put them against each other like people tend to do. (Efficient administration makes adaptation to de- mands from the public easier.) She illustrated what she meant by telling how the LB responded to public de- mands to change the opening hours of the swimming pool. (All these little things are about democracy - adapting services to what people want!) There had cer- tainly been no remarkable deepening of democracy and, as a matter offact, neither had there been very revolution- ary change on the administrative side. But all the small things that happen are important to note and care about. All the crossings of administrative borders that occur. (She illustrated by small anecdotes e.g. about the pool attendant who was found to be interested in computers and was trained to become a backup resource in the re- porting function of the LB.)

Anne also pointed out the ability of this kind of organ- ization to adapt jobs to people in informal ways.

Anne thought that she should have been much tough- er in demanding resources for the LB organization from the beginning. If she had been she would have had more time for management-by-walking-around now. Walking

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around is the proper way to let it be known among the grass roots what the LB policies are. If you can articulate policies in this way you stimulate creative thinking out there and you can react to proposals on the spot.

The work of the board has grown more and more for- malized (written documents and proper procedure), but it had been difficult for members to find concrete issues that were suitable to use for articulation of party policies. Anne had discovered that unions provide an information channel that can be used to stimulate debate inside sec- tors. Anne regretted that the LB issue was politically in- fected from the start. Even if political divisions had largely subsided by now, the support from the Executive Committee was less than whole-hearted from the begin- ning.

The Controller’s department provided support all along. The remaining problems with the City Hall in gen- eral are due to the fact that real life out here does not look the same as it does from their windows. “Some- times they have been too aware of that difference in knowledge about realities.” They are reluctant to force anything on Anne, while Anne seeks guidance. “It seems like there is something we want from them that they don’t have”, Anne said.

The main task in the foreseeable future will be further work on the integration of sectors and of professions. Her theory is simple: if you just place people together they will soon start to improve the quality of each other’s work.

Anne is satisfied that the LB project has passed the point of no return and that she was one of the pioneers. She worries a bit about work becoming boring when it is routine.

Analysis: Organizingfor Efficiency

Charlie was very pleased with the consulting reports be- cause they confirmed his own ideas about how an efti- cient City Hall should be organized. He did not talk very much about difficulties in implementing the new struc- ture. For him the concepts and lines of reasoning were enough. Charlie sees the world discursively.

For Anne it was also pleasing that the consultants had come to the conclusion that the LB type of organization was the best solution for the future, but her attention was more directed towards the internal operations ofher man- agement group. She needed a hierarchic structure to get things done. One might even say that she was begin-

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ning to set up a new sectorized structure to be more effi- cient. It is difficult to say if this is an indication of the old structure reproducing itself or if it should be interpreted as a consequence of the need for practical implementa- tion of integrative projects. Integration is only achieved when generally accepted practices exist, and to generate practices the organization must have the capacity to ini- tiate action on a wider scale than one person can do ad hoc.

Evaluation

The intention behind this rather lengthy account of how two participants in an extremely complex process of or- ganizing (or rather reorganizing) has been to portray complexity. Themes interweave and interact. Action is fragmented. Actors are thrown between discursive and practical orders.In this flux of actions and arguments based on differing logics, actors try to establish islands of meaningfulness and to create links between such islands.It is a more complex task than the one experienc- ed by the school board cutting the budget in the Boland and Pondy (1986) study, since the actors in this case move between settings as well as between frames. This is a frustrating experience since the process of organizing is an interactive exercise.

In the same way it is very difficult to account for the complexity, not to say the chaos, that provides the raw material of a sense-making process. To impose a specific order on such an account preempts all alternative un- derstandings of the process and, above all, begs the question of how chaos should be described.

The choice here has been to keep close to actual inter- view records and to avoid preconcieved interpretive schemes. The course of the interviews themselves was arbitrary in the sense that the associations of the inter- viewees were allowed as much free play as possible. Of course an occasional Why? or What happened then? etc cannot be avoided.

The object of study being the process of organizing, any detailed definition of the situation is, by definition, precluded. The description of the process as perceived by the participants seems to have no recourse but to illus- trate complexity; to convey a feeling of the context in which sense making takes place.

We are dealing with the formative stage, when pat- terns that will evolve into practices are established. It is assumed that in this kind of situation participants will

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use experiential schemata, notably clusters of behavioral rules, like those of accounting, to make sense of an over- whelming flow of perceptions.

One could ask what kind of knowledge would come out of such an exercise. The answer might be “under- standing” and theory, completely invalidated of course, but still a kind of theory. “ . . .theory is subsequent to that out of which it is abstracted; that is to praxis.” (Gada- mer, 1976)

The task then is to use these fragmental pictures of events in a process, much like an archeologist, to recon- struct how the two actors might have gone about making sense of the process they were invoved in. Sediments of an ongoing learning process are to be pieced together to form a hypothetical understanding of what went on.

Some Basic Structures

There are some basic sense making structures that can be discerned. Charlie used an abstract/academic lan- guage in his descriptions. He saw his task as being to im- plement a “new constitution” for the LBs. The activities themselves, out there in the districts, are important; of course they are! But it is a matter of designing a set of rules that will allow the LBs to develop their own organi- zation. Charlie fought his battles early in the process, when the LB project was being established. Later he kept a low profile towards the LBOs while protecting the flanks. He justified his low profile with the perfectly ra- tional argument that you cannot run a decentralization project from the center. But it also seemed as though his approach and type of arguments could not have been of much use in the concrete LB situations. Charlie achiev- ed results. His battle over the political secretaries in the City Hall was fused with the LB project and he was satis- fied with the outcome on both fronts. But he lost his job, becoming a victim of the process he initiated.

Anne used action in her sense making efforts. To “cut strings” of control between sector departments and local operations and to integrate emancipated units into her own organization, she tried to establish fait accompli sit- uations. These would later be confirmed in budget deci- sions. In that process she did not always use proper pro- cedure and sometimes lost goodwill. While Charlie would use abstract principles to make sense of what he had seen, Anne used anecdotes - episodes - even when she wanted to illustrate abstract principles. The in- terview tapes are full of colourful episodes - fragments

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of figures against the background of the project. There was however no master plan. Both actors had to

play by ear and take advantage of every opportunity to push the project in the right direction. As a consequence the process was necessarily complex to them too. They had to have some device to help them make sense of events. For Charlie it was a constitution or a set of con- tracts that created order. For Anne it seemed to be islands of activity that provided a measure of order. Ac- tivities turn into practices and can be used as prototypes for other integrated activity bundles. Anne used these “stories” about episodes to show how individuals could have a more exciting job under LB jurisdiction. She used them to change structures that could not be influ- enced by using abstract principles.

The stories convey striking differences in organization- al cultures between departments - differences in lan- guage, communication patterns and in behavioural norms. To some extent these differences are based on professional or task dimensions, but there is also intra- group community (solidarity, mutuality). The differenc- es generate uncertainty about the meaning of statements and agreements across borders. Routinization of activi- ties will generate praxis. In Anne’s view the budget will confirm the legitimacy of these new practices. In Char- lie’s view the budget will confirm that the constitution is put into practice. Anne uses action to deal with complex- ity, Charlie uses abstraction. Anne does something and Charlie writes a memo or initiates a decision. Anne’s is a

practical consiousness, Charlie’s discursive (Giddens 1979). They both find accounting useful to make sense of the world, even if it is not of primary importance.

One might wonder if the accounting system has spe- cial properties in this organization, or if Charlie and Anne do. One might indeed wonder on what grounds one may suggest that they do find accounting useful. For the sake of argument let us assume that it is true that they find accounting useful and discuss which properties of accounting might contribute to such a usefulness. (Reminding the reader that one of the conclusions of Bo- land and Pondy (1986 p 414) is that “The accountiq sy-

stem has a dual structure: it provides abstractions for analysis

without regard to persons, as well as mechanisms for piercing to

the bodies of those affected by the analysis. “)

It seems clear that the usefulness does not come pri- marily from the figures in the budget or the analysis that could be based on them. Rather it seems as though ac- counting defines jurisdictions. Once the park teams are

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in the budget, their work can be integrated with that of the school janitors. One cannot disregard the fact that operations are financed through budgets in the public sector and therefore budgets are important, but people could work together without being paid through the same budget! The budget legitimizes, disciplines and settles disputes.

Most of Anne’s problems stemmed from the fact that communication over cultural borders was difficult. People in their professional roles differ more than they do in their social roles. There were repeated misunder- standings. Anne needed help in generating an organiza- tional structure to form a basis for formal decisions, but the personnel department is used to working on the basis of existing formal decisions. People there were not used to working with unstructered material.

Boland and Pondy (1986) focus attention on the frame shifting that seems to be used as a method for solving problems in a group. Fiscal, clinical, political and strate- gic aspects/models were used in repeated attacks on prob- lems, with shifts between models when one aspect seemed to be temporarily exhausted.

For Anne the problem was more complicated because she had to move between groups as well as shift between frames in groups. Her most important project in the fi- nal interview was to do something about the coordinat- ing group (consisting of those with budget responsibili- ty); it was a discussion club that did not get things done.

What was this group discussing? It seems that the expe- riential backgrounds of the participants were not similar enough to permit “association by similarity”, a term that James (1890) introduced. Instead they were con- strained to “association by contiguity” in which a single image of a situation is explored to enumerate its compo- nent parts (Boland & Pondy, 1986 p. 417). As a conse- quence there was little basis for joint action and joint problem solving. In this organizing process there was no common language to translate images between operative units, except the accounting language.

Accounting as Regulation

To be accountable means to accept a principal-agent re- lation. In return for the right to control a given amount of resources the agent accepts being held accountable for the consequences. For the principal the account is a sym- bol of his domination over the agent, a symbol that must be upheld for the relation to hold.

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For Charlie the LB project meant the establishment of a constitution and the confirmation of the new regime through the budget. A constitution represents the rules of the game on a discursive level. Accounting serves to regulate that the game on the practical level is played ac- cording to the rules.

For Anne too accounting is above all an instrument for legitimizing, but it is action rather than rules that is in focus. Not until the activities are properly included in the budget will Anne know that she is in control of them. Before that moment she may exert control by persua- sion, by merely being present and by other informal means. After-words, “proper prucedure” is applicable.

For both Charles and Anne it seems clear that ac- counting serves as an ordering instrument in the organi- zing process. To Anne it symbolizes the domination of the accountee, and it is a direct and unproblematic conse- quence of the constitution to Charlie. Accounting serves a constitutive function in the establishment of a mean- ingful order within the organizing process.

Accounting as Language

At the center (Charlie) as well as locally (Anne) manag- ers manage a stream of activities to achieve reproduction of order and meaningfullness. These activities constitute a process, and managers apply a set of behavioural max- ims often built on experience and tacit knowledge. But managers also control and coordinate the activities of sub- ordinates (who also use tacit knowledge in dealing with their processes) and in that function they refer to output measures (Argyris, 1977; Ouchi, 1977).

To organize could be said to be the establishment of communication between these two levels. The process- oriented local language is not readily translatable into the output-oriented and standarized language of the cen- tral, coordinating level.

Initially, Anne was frustrated by the differences in or- ganizational culture between different sector depart- ments that manifest themselves in communication prob- lems, due to differences in the meanings of terms used in interaction. Intended meanings did not coincide with attributed meanings. In this situation accounting can serve as a bridge in the establishment of a common in- terpretative scheme. ’ ‘Interpretative schemes form the core of

the mutual knowledge whereby an accountable universe of mean-

ing is sustained through and in processes of interaction. ” (Gid- dens, 1979 p. 83) Such schemes cannot be “mono-logi-

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cal” since they serve interaction between two or more contexts. They have to be built in and through interac- tion. Accounting, being an artificial language in relation to most work processes, can serve in the very initiating stage of organizing for interaction. The tacit knowledge inherent in the principal’s skilled handling of school matters cannot be easily explicated to the librarian and vice versa, but both spheres can relate to accounting cat- egories and thereby start a process of building interpre- tative schemes. Once such a process has started, ac- counting may be discarded as alien to the interpretative scheme or integrated in it, depending on what social practices develop. In the former case accounting will be perceived mainly as a symbol of domination (accounting as regulation), whereas in the latter accounting becomes part of the language used to describe events and situa- tions.

It seems to be the case that, during the first constitu- tive stages of the organizing process studied here, ac- counting was mainly used in the regulation mode, i.e. to determine who is accountable to whom. Very few in- stances (or traces of instances) have been found where ac- counting served a communicative function in the sense described above. However, it might be assumed that ac- counting plays an integrated role in the self-monitoring of conduct at a later stage, when social practices have been established.

Conclusion

Boland and Pondy (1986) describe how organizational members solve accounting related problems in a speci- fied situation by shifting between frames of reference in what they call micro-dynamics of a budget-cutting pro- cess. This study deals with accounts, made by two ac- tors, of an orginizing process. These accounts reflect how the actors made sense of the process they observed from different perspectives. The main conclusion is that Charlie and Anne use different conceptual schemes in their sense making (discursive and practical conscious- ness respectively).

It is not easy to convey the content of the totality of an empirical material when it consists of accounts of pro- cesses. When you deal with micro-dynamics like Boland and Pondy (1986), taped records of the actual social en- counters provide the basis for interpretation. In a study like the present one interpretations (sense making) of so- cial encounters form the basis of interpretation. And

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furthermore there are two interpretations of the same basic process! Double caution is warranted. It is not pos- sible to establish any “true” description of the process, to compare Charlie’s and Anne’s accounts with.

The process should possibly have been described as reorganizing. It was certainly one of the most difficult change processes you could think of; to break with an age old sectorial pattern fortified by political and profes- sional traditions and financing rules, and to do this on an experimental basis, i.e. all the actors involved knew that the project could be recalled at any sign of failure. (Furthermore it was not clearly known what would con- stitute success or failure.)

As this was a reorganization, one could try to identify factors of continuity between the old organization and the new one. One finds that on the surface not very much really happened. Schools teach the same curricu- la, nursery schools and social services do their job as usual, libraries and youth clubs look the same. Activities go on unchanged except for some marginal joint pro- jects. The change that went on was in principal-agent re- lations and in interpretative schemes. In these changes accounting served both as a medium and as a means for change. The visions of the two actors about the future characteristics of the organization, incomplete and frag- mented as they may have been, also steered the chain of events.

Both actors repeatedly referred to the accounting sys- tem as supportive to the work they were doing. The sys- tem is flexible enough to allow local responsibility cen- ters to design their own reports, and Anne especially was confident that she could use the system constructively in the design process. As far as the interviews went, it was possible to verify that this was the case, but still one has to conclude that the primary role of the accounting sys- tem in this reorganization process was in the “manage- ment” of principal-agent relations. The development of interpretative schemes for interaction seems to be some- thing that may come into focus at later stages of the pro- cess.

The actors themselves fell victim to the process. When the experimental period expired Anne did not get the permanent job as LB0 in ‘ ‘her’ ’ district, and Charlie took early retirement. The chairman of the LB withdrew from politics. There were different sets of reasons for this, but a common factor is that they all were enthu- siasts and that they challenged existing structures in their efforts to create an LB identity. Enthusiasts are un-

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reliable in a status quo perspective. But even if these ac- tors left the organization, they had managed before they left to generate structures that produce and reproduce sensible social practices. To a large extent these struc- tures are embedded in an accounting discourse.

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