Let’s apply a positivist twist to a federalist claim. That is, let us take one of federation
theory’s tenets, derive a hypothesis from it, and see if in reality – the real
world – the hypothesis is true. Well, I
am going to hedge a bit. My experiment
will not be well controlled, but the general gist of an experiment will be
present. And, it’s not my experiment;
it’s Hahric Han’s.[1] Actually, Han’s work is not an experiment at
all; it’s a qualitative study in which she conducted extensive observations and
interviews within an array of formal organizations, generally professional and
environmental ones. Her specific
interest was to compare the relative success in eliciting activism among these
organizations’ members. She wanted to
see the ability of these organizations to get members to participate in the
different organizational processes that constitute the activities of the organization,
such as working phone banks or soliciting membership.
Han began by dividing general strategies of these
organizations into two types. These
types were transactional mobilizing and transformational organizing. Generally, each type views soliciting
activism fundamentally different in that transactional mobilizing counts on
actively identifying latent talent among the membership and approaching the
members so identified to take on organizational roles – a targeted approach –
and transformational organizing casts a wide net, encouraging as many members
to take on roles and then spending time and resources to develop the talents of
those members once they are “on the job.”
The first is more exclusive in its approach and the latter is more
inclusive. The first relies on fewer
resources of time and effort while the second has relatively high upfront
costs. The hypothesis would be,
following the claims of federation theory, that the second approach would, in
the long run, accrue higher returns for the organization than the first. You would have more active members, members
who, in fulfilling organizational roles, perform their roles in line with
organizational expectations, and an overall more vibrant organization better
able to fulfill its aims and goals. What
did Han discover?
While transactional mobilizing was better in matching roles
to pre-held desires of members, transformational organizers were about
transforming member desires and, through the personal interaction entailed in
the “training,” developed more social interaction among the membership. Transformational organizing was characterized
by many person-to-person exchanges in the form of training sessions and
meetings. This was distinguishable from
the transactional mobilizing approach that left engaged members more alone in
doing their jobs. By and large, these
transactional settings were in organizations more prone to having less engaged
memberships, while the transformational organizing ones experienced higher
engaged memberships. Higher engagement
meant higher cognitive, emotional, interdependency styled work, but did not do
away with autonomous efforts strategically pursued (how federal can this get?). A result for the organizations that adopted
the transformational organizing strategy was an organization more prone to
enjoy many positive qualities such as a membership sharing more leadership
skills and an atmosphere more conducive to engage in collective action. Federation theory passed this “experiment.”
How generalizable are these results? Well, as is often the case, more work needs
to be done. This study was limited to fairly
professional organizations composed of middle to upper middle income
subjects. In terms of other demographic
limitations, the observations and interviews were mostly of a white
sample. And of course, if further study
were to conduct a truly experimental design, then many more controls would have
to be in place. Perhaps such a study
would be impractical to conduct and the more qualitative protocol employed by
Han would be the way to go with a more inclusive set of organizations. But the path of research opened by Han is
worth pursuing and it would be useful to see if the insights derived, assuming
they mirror this initial study, further bolster the claims of federation
theory.
[1]
Han, H.
(2014). How organizations develop activists:
Civic associations and leadership in the 21st century. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Information reported in this posting derived from a book review by
Melissa R. Michelson found in Political Science Quarterly, fall, 2015, issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment