1. B300
TUTORIAL WEEK FOUR 1

2. B300: Overview Business behaviour in a changing world Organisation
Decision making
Strategy
Organisation
Policy 2

3. THIS TUTORIAL…. CHAPTER 7
The Hospital and its Negotiated Order by Strauss, Schatzman, Ehrlich, Bucher and Sabshin.
CHAPTER 8
The Practicalities of Rule Use by Don Zimmerman.
INCORPORATES SMALL GROUP WORK THIS WEEK 3

4. CHAPTER 7 The Hospital and its Negotiated Order by Strauss, Schatzman, Ehrlich, Bucher and Sabshin.
First read the first paragraph under Chapter 7 on page 36 of the Decision Making Study Guide. This explains the role of this chapter in the course. 4

5. This chapter…
Shows decision making processes in more detail through empirical analysis of people behaving in ways which differ from formal requirements but which make sense to them. 5

6. Definition
Negotiated order is the consequence of give and take interaction within settings predefined by broader, and usually more formal, rules, norms, laws, or expectations, in order to secure preferred ends. 6

7. The chapter addresses issues relating to hospitals:
1.   A professionalised locale
2.   Rules and unruled behaviour
3.   The grounds for negotiation
4.   The patients and negotiated order
5.   Patterned and temporal features of negotiation
6.   Negotiation, appraisal and organisation change 7

8. SMALL GROUP WORK
In your small research groups your tutor will now give you a task for each group to summarise one of the issues from the previous slide so all the issues are covered.
Then each group will present their summary to the section and the tutor will facilitate a discussion based upon pages of the text book. 8

9. What does the chapter say?
The chapter suggested that when staff in the hospital made decisions, they simply didn’t follow the rules and procedures established by managers.
The Decision making here is MORE COMPLEX and VARIABLE than the rational approach would assume.
The complexity and variability are built into the structure of the hospital – and can be applied to other organisations too. 9

10. Summary
The chapter has pictured the hospital as having a complex negotiative process in order to accomplish their purpose, and to work (in an established division of labour) towards clearly expressed and less clearly expressed institutional objectives. 10

11. CHAPTER 8 The Practicalities of Rule Use by Don Zimmerman.11

12. In this chapter…
Zimmerman illustrates the inadequacy of the rational decision making approach.
He shows that members of an organisation, far from adhering the the rules and procedures that should inform their decision making, use and understand these rules in everyday work in creative and adaptive ways.
He wants to understand how organisational members actually make sense of and understand what these rules mean in practice. 12

13. Bureaucracy
Bureaucratic is when the need to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action. It is generally a common characteristic of governments/ministries in most regions of the world as well as in many organizations. You may hear the expression “red tape” to indicate the existence of bureaucracy. You will have studied this in B200 organisations module. 13

14. Rules
The use of formally prescribed procedures viewed from the perspective of the notion of their ‘competent use’ becomes a matter not of compliance or of deviance but of judgmental work.
Rules are not hard and fast ‘social facts’ but are the result of continual interpretation and negotiation which produces an ever-shifting framework for actions to be taken.
Rules may be negotiated and changed, and new rules created but rules also stand over and above organisational actors informing and shaping the emotional life of an organisation.
Rules are resources for action, but because contexts vary, they do not determine performances of individuals or their organisation. 14

15. The empirical study
The study was conducted in one district office of the Metropolitan County Bureau of public assistance, located in a large western US state.
Instances of ‘deviation’ The intake assignment procedure: A third intake was about to be assigned to worker Jones. At this time, Jones was engaged in conducting an interview with her first assigned applicant. “The biggest problem is keeping these people moving”. A suspension of the rule of assignment was allowed for personal reasons rather than for practical work considerations. 15

16. Conclusion
The chapter is explicitly concerned with the nature and implications of employees’ meanings in decision making: the practical interests, perspective, and interpretative practices of the rule user. 16

17. Bending the rules
Try to think of an instance where the rules have been “bent” to keep an organisation running smoothly…
Do you agree with Zimmerman’s conclusions about deviation from the rational model? 17

18. WEEK 6 ACTIVITIES
Please select from the following activities which could be undertaken by students at this stage:
Activity Seven (page 38 of the Decision Making Study Guide)
Activity Eight (page 40 of the Decision Making Study Guide)
Self Check (page 41 of the Decision Making Guide – will be important in your self-analysis of your learning progress so far) 18

19. READING TO BE COMPLETED BY NEXT WEEK
Please re-read pages of the Decision Making Study Guide to refresh your study of Chapters seven and eight.
Please read pages (Chapters 9 and 10) of Decision Making for Business Text Book.
If you have time, read pages 42 – 52 of the Decision Making Study Guide to prepare you for next week.
The tutorial slides this week are shorter to give you the opportunity for small group work in your small research groups, and also to discuss any questions you may have with your tutor. 19