Organizational Decision Making as a Political Process: The Case of a University Budget

Abstract

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Janice Barton, Karen Riley, and Ray Zammuto in the data collection and the support of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Illinois. The effect of subunit power on resource allocation decisions in one university is examined. Measures of departmental power in a university are found to be significantly related to the proportion of the budget received, even after statistically controlling for such universalistic bases of allocation as work load of the department, national rank, and number of faculty. Subunit power in the organization is also related to the correlation between a subunit's resources-budget and instructional staff-and work load over time. The more powerful the department, the less the allocated resources are a function of departmental work load and student demand for course offerings. Subunit power is measured by both interviews of department heads and the analysis of archival records of departmental representation on major university committees. Intercorrelations between these measures of subunit power indicate that it is possible to obtain unobtrusive measures of organizational political systems without direct interviewing.