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Målstyrning och mellanchefers arbete - hierarki, delaktighet och tillfälligheternas spel: en fallstudie av ett privat företag och en offentlig förvaltning
Linköping University, Department of Education and Psychology. Linköping University, Faculty of Educational Sciences.
1994 (Swedish)Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)Alternative title
Goal steering and the work of middle managers : hierarchy, involvement and the effect of random factors : a case study of a private firm and a public administration (English)
Abstract [en]

This study deals with how goal steering is perceived and experienced at intermediate levels in two organizations, a private firm and a public administration. More specifically, the following three questions are posed: Firstly, how do middle managers perceive and experience goal steering in relation to: (a) what the goals are and what functions they perform; (b) involvement in the formulation and detailed specification of goals in the organization; (c) control of the activity; (d) evaluation of the achievement of goals in terms of the results obtained. Secondly, what possible similarities and differences are to be found between the two cases on the point of how middle managers perceive and experience goal steering, and how can these similarities and differences be interpreted and explained. Thirdly, how do the empirical results compare with the normative models and theoretical perspectives applied and with previous research on goal steering and managerial work. In this study, goal steering is examined from the point of view of three different perspectives addressing three different ways of looking at organized activity, namely a rationalistic perspective, a learning perspective and an institutional perspective. Consequently, organizational theory are, together with theories of and research on managerial work, used as a theoretical framework for the study.

The empirical results show that goal steering can be difficult to put into practice. The picture of goal steering which emerges in this case study can be elucidated by means of the concepts of hierarchy, involvement and the effect of random factors. The findings of the study show that there are more similarities than differences between the two cases on the point of how goal steering is perceived and applied at the middle management level. A question posed above was whether different perspectives of organizational theory could contribute to an increased understanding of how middle managers perceive and work with goal steering. One conclusion that can be drawn from the results is that the phenomenon of goal steering means different things in different theoretical presentations, something else at the ideological level in the organizations studied and something different again in practical action.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Linköping: Linköpings universitet , 1994. , p. 243
Series
Linköping Studies in Education and Psychology, ISSN 1102-7517 ; 40
Keywords [en]
goal steering, middle manager, managerial work, privat firm, public administration, organizational theory.
National Category
Pedagogy Learning
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-143142Libris ID: 8377067Local ID: LiU-IPP-STU--40--SEISBN: 9178714125 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-143142DiVA, id: diva2:1158999
Public defence
1994-09-23, Eklundska salen, Hus I, Campus Valla, Linköping, 10:00
Available from: 2017-11-21 Created: 2017-11-21 Last updated: 2023-03-20

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