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LE. . u .. iiihtx. m>au0§0u5¢ m>fiuoEous¢ m>wuoaou5¢ anumzch can: pcmEmOHmEm coflpmuuommcmuu ucwEmonEw ucmfimonEw .coflumu :mcflmsom .coflumospm .mcflmsom Inommcmuu .msflmsom mEmHQoum Cam: Dunno wow wow mm» Hmcofiumecmmuo Hfiocsoo zuflo Hfiocsoo muflo Hflocsoo muflo unwecum>ow Inmmmcmfi wuflu lummmcme wuHU luowmfi xmmz mo Euom cmmfluummcoz cameHMQcoz cmmaunmmsoz msofluomam Nea.mmm.amw omn.amo.v~m mas.mmn.naw ummmsm Hmmfloflcsz Hmmflowcsz Hmmfloflcsz conmHEEou maficcmHm ww.au wm.aa wmm onmanomma Eoum nuzouo m ooo.mma ooo.mma ooo.mma coflumasmom O m m suflo .mnouomm Hmsuxmucoo can amusuosuumul.m mqmda 21 in earlier studies. In the present study, each planner was asked to rank order the three most important problems facing their city. As the chart indicates, housing is the number one problem in all three cities, followed by transportation or education, and employment. Within each department only those members that the planning directors considered to be full-time professional planners were used for the study. Draftsmen, clerical workers, new staff members, etc. were not included. It was felt that only full-time planners would be relevant for the present study. They would have more external communication as representatives of the department, and they would have the greatest impact on the department's productivity and institutionalization. Accordingly, 14 planners were inter- viewed in city "A," four in city "B," and three in city "C." Data Collection The author personally administered a questionnaire to each planner participating in the study. Where a number of planners all worked on the same hierarchical level, it was possible to administer the questionnaire to groups of two to four at a time. Administration occurred in the offices or conference rooms with each planning department. Duplicate information concerning the departmental budgets and the city operating budgets were collected from the budget departments of each city. Population and population growth figures were furnished by the Michigan 22 State Office of Planning Coordination from the 1970 federal census . Operationalization of the Variables Property Variables 1. Length of employment is the number of years that a planner has worked for the planning department being studied. Each planner simple listed the number of years he had been employed. Responses were rounded to the nearest year, and ranged from one to 20 years. 2. Education was defined as the number of years of formal education that a planner has had. Assigning a "l" for the first year of college and another for every year thereafter, the reSponses ranged from "3" to "6," with the latter score corresponding to two years of graduate study. 3. Professional Organization Membership was taken as the official membership of a respondent in professional planning organizations such as the American Institute of Planners, the American Society of Planning Officials, etc. A point was given for each association for which the re- spondent held membership. The total represented his final score. Scores ranged from zero to four. 4. Position was taken as the relative position of the planner in the departmental hierarchy. The following scores were given: 1. planner 2. planning supervisor or senior planner 5. 23 3. assistant planning director 4. planning director Propensity to Influence was defined as the extent to which a respondent would attempt to influence their city council's decision concerning a plan or proposal developed by their planning department. The following open- ended question was used to measure their propensity to influence decisions: Suppose that an important issue is about to be settled by the city council. The decision concerns a prOposal that this planning department has recommended, or will affect a plan developed by this department. Assuming that there is still time for further consideration be- fore a final decision is made, what would you be likely to do? Three judges sorted each planner's response onto the follow- ing scale: Example Very Low "Nothing" Low Moderate "Attempt to convince planning commission that they should take some action." High Very High "Count votes . . . act politically to lobby through, send out public notices and work with citizens' groups, provide staff position papers . . . " Interjudge correlation coefficients of .88, .81, and .85 were obtained. 24 External Integration Variables l. Interdepartmental Communication consists of the frequency of contact that members of a planning department have with members of other departments within city govern- ment. Each respondent was given a checklist of the follow— ing 10 positions representing the important groups or de- partments in city government: (1) Chief Executive--the mayor or city manager, (2) Planning Commission, (3) City Council, (4) City Clerk, (5) Director of Finance, (6) Director of Public Works or Service Department, (7) City Treasurer, (8) City Engineer, (9) Director of Personnel, and (10) Director of the Model Cities Program. An addi- tional six spaces were included for each respondent to list other important positions or departments with whom they had contact. Rarely were all six spaces used. The first five positions listed were considered to be part of the policy formulation sector. Each respondent was asked to check whether his communication was predominantly with the person who actually held the position listed, or, where applicable, with another member from that department. They then checked how often they communicated with this person using the following responses: 7. Once a day or more 4. Once or twice per week 2. Once or twice per month 1. Three or four times per year 0. Less often 25 A scale from zero to seven was used in order to more closely approximate an interval scale. A mean score for each respondent was computed as an indication of his overall level of external communication with members from all of the positions or departments listed. A separate mean was computed for just his frequency of contact with members from the first five positions--the policy formu- lation sector. 2. Inter-organizational Communication was taken as the frequency of communication that members of the planning department have with members of organizations in their com- munity outside of city government. The type of checklist used in interdepartmental communication was also used here. Since the study is concerned with the decision network in the planning department's environment, it was necessary to include only those organizations expected to have an influ- ence on the decision-making in each city. Fortunately, a study of community influentials had been done for one of the cities in the sample (Form & Sauer, 1959). This infor— mation was used to generate the following list of organi- zations for the checklist: Chamber of Commerce, Community Chest, United Auto Workers Union, Parent Teachers Associ- ation, Community Action Program of O.E.O., Regional Planning Office, Local Board of Realtors, Local Division of General Motors (the largest single industrial concern in each city), the Municipal Hospital, and the Local Daily 26 Newspaper. An additional five spaces were allotted for respondents to add other important organizations with which they had contact. This space was not used by most of the respondents. A mean for each respondent was computed to indicate his over-all frequency of communication with this group of organizations. 3. Communipy Organization Membership was taken as the number of memberships that each planner held in clubs, civic organizations, service organizations, citizens' groups, churches, etc., in the local community. Scores ranged from zero to eight. 4. Council MeetingpAttendance was taken as the frequency of each respondent's attendance at regular city council meetings. The following scale was used for measure- ment: 1. never 2. seldom 3. now and then 4. often 5. always 5. Participant Planning was taken as the respond- ent's having organized or worked with citizens' groups with the expressed purpose of getting them involved in the plan— ning process. Responses were coded as: 0. no 1. yes 27 6. Attendance at Local Meetings was taken as the number of hours per week outside of working hours spent in attendance of the meetings of local groups or organizations. The following scale was used to measure this: 0. l. 2. 3. 4. none 1 to 2 hours/week 3 to 6 hours/week 7 to 10 hours/week more than 10 hours/week Intervening Variables Related to Effectiveness A. Institutionalization: 1. Percentage of the Budget Allocated to Plan- pipg_was taken as the ratio of the planning department's budget and the city operating budget for 1970-1971. Percapita Expenditure for Planning was taken as the ratio of the planning budget for 1970—1971 and the city's total population based on the 1970 census. Staff Size was taken as the number of em- ployees budgeted for each department for the 1970-1971 fiscal year. Because of turnover, some of these positions were unfilled at the time of the interviews. B. Productivity was defined as the number of studies conducted by the department over the last five years 28 weighted by the department's degree of responsibility for each study. An example of the checklist used for this measure may be found in the appendix. For each type of study checked the department was given points for their degree of responsibility according to the following scale: 0. Did not participate/or Not applicable 1. Supplied information 2. Major contributor 3. Our responsibility The fact that the directors added only one additional study to the original list suggests that it was fairly exhaustive. Theoretically, the scores could range from zero to 48. Data Analysis The data were submitted to multiple regression in order to obtain the best model to predict the intervening variables associated with organizational effectiveness. To estimate the parameters step-down regression techniques were used to regress each of the external integration vari- ables on the property variables. Where each parameter estimate was not significant at the .05 level it was re- moved and the analysis rerun. A similar set of regressions was run with the best two intervening variables being re- gressed on both the property variables and the external integration variables combined. The findings will be presented below in diagrams using path arrows to represent direct relationships. The 29 existence of a path arrow will mean that the relationship was statistically significant. The direction of the arrow represents the assumed direction of causality. All vari— ables used in the present analysis are assumed to have an underlying interval quality which make them amenable to multiple regression analysis. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS Results of the Dependent Variables Table 3 summarizes the results of the four criterion variables assumed to be associated with organizational effectiveness. These results corroborate the initial estimate of each department's level of effectiveness based on their production of studies. The three departments in the sample are sufficiently dispersed on the criterion variables to render them useful for the present study. Since the three measures of institutionalization were so highly corrolated (.90 and above) it was felt that all were good indicators of institutionalization. There- fore, only the Percent of the Budget Allocated to Planning (hereinafter referred to as Budget Allocation) and the Productivity Index were used for the path analysis. The frequency of communication with the chief execu- tive was excluded from the path analysis. For two of the cities the chief executive was the city manager. The other city did not have a city manager, but rather "weak—mayor, city council" form of government. It would be inappropriate 30 31 www.mm m mm Hm.o h~.o O mmv.om OH Hm mv.o hm.o m ooo.amam mm mm mv.am no.a m pompsm mafia mommoamem >ua>au09Uoum musuwpcmmxm ummpdm mpwu usmfiuumamo Ismam Hmuoa mo Hwnfisz . . MDHQMO umm mo ucmo Mom .mmmcm>fluommmm mswcsmHm mo muoumoHUaHul.m mqmda 32 to consider communication with the manager and the mayor as equivalent. The former is nearer to the center of the de- cision network and has more impact on the decision-making process. However, it is interesting to note the simple corre- lation of frequency of contact with the chief executive and the department's budget allocation (-.46) and with its index of productivity (-32). This indicates that the plan- ning department with the higher scores on these indicators of effectiveness have significantly less contact with its chief executive. This is the same city with the mayor- council form of government. This finding agrees with that of Catanese and Steiss, and is attributed to the different form of government. Results of the Path Analysis Let us now turn to the major predictors of Budget Allocation. Figure 2 represents a diagram of the best model resulting from the step-wise multiple regression. The numbers attached to the arrows represent the standardized regression coefficients or path coefficients as explained above. Curved lines and their numbers represent simple correlation coefficients. The explanation of 42% of the variance points to a powerful set of predictors for Budget Allocation. An exami- nation of the model shows that a property variable and an 33 Length of Participant Budget - . 11 Education Planning ’ Allocation .58 37 Propensity to Influence Figure 2.-—The Path Diagram for Budget Allocation. external integration variable are equally instrumental in determining the planning department's Budget Allocation. At first it might appear that planning departments whose staffs have been employed longer have a lower per- centage of the city budget allocated to them. However, it is much less misleading to conclude that planning depart- ments whose staffs have been employed for less time receive a greater proportion of their city budget. The departmental means indicate the differences in Length of Employment (Table 4). TABLE 4.--Length of employment. Planning Department Mean Length of Employment A 4 years B 8 years C 12 years 34 This finding is difficult to interpret until the variable, Length of Employment, is scrutinized more closely. In the sample studied, Length of Employment was practically equivalent to a more common prOperty variable, Age. Planners that have been employed for a number of years are older. The relatively new planners are younger, recent college graduates. Planning departments with higher propor- tions of the city budget have larger and younger staffs simply because they are expanding. The major part of a planning department's budget is used for staff salaries. The staff members most recently acquired are younger, and, of course, have not been employed very long. An examination of the three property variables re- tained in the model yields a more complete explanation. In effect, what the model illustrates is that the newer, younger planners are also more highly educated (r = -.39). The main distinction in level of education was between those who had graduate education and those who did not. As de- partments grow they employ younger planners with more gradu- ate education. For this study, controlling on the other property variables seems to delimit the direct effect of Education, but it does not prevent it from working indirectly through other variables. Planners that have been employed for less time have more graduate education (r = -.39). Education also works through Propensity to Influence and Participant 35 Planning to indirectly affect the criterion variable. Planners with more education tend to have a higher Pro- pensity to Influence the decision-making process (r = .58). This may indicate that graduate schools are emphasizing the political nature of the planning process. It may also be due to the changing norms regarding the role of the pro- fessional planner in city government. Finally, it may be due to a "climate" of political action that may be char- acteristic of expanding departments that obtain a certain number of planners with graduate education. Propensity to Influence does not show any direct effects, but works through Participant Planning (.37). This is consistent with some of the open-ended responses to the question used to measure this (i.e., "notify citizen's groups, etc."). This finding may indicate that planners with higher Propensities to Influence may only be able to influence the decisions of their city council indirectly through the groups involved in participant planning. The only External Integration variable retained in the model is Participant Planning. It seems to have a strong direct effect on the percentage of the budget allo- cated to the planning department. This finding can be interpreted in two ways. If a planning department has a small staff, the resources that it can assign to working with citizen groups are limited. Participant planning requires substantial staff time and probably cannot be 36 undertaken to any great extent without increasing the size of the staff. So this finding could mean that the city council has granted budget requests so that the planning department can engage in more participant planning activi- ties. From this standpoint, it can be argued that the decision to engage in participant planning leads to an in- crease in the department's budget, and thep the department hires more planners and engages in more participant plan- ning. ‘Such an interpretation contradicts the causal di- rection represented by the path diagram. The alternative explanation argues that the direc- tion of causality is from increase in staff and more par- ticipant planning, accompanied by the necessary budget increases. Nothing in the model can prove the time order of the relationship among the variables. However, there is evidence to support the second interpretation. This will be presented later in the short case study of departmental growth. The case presented will show that a staff can initiate participant planning with the help of part-time, student planners not actually represented in the budget. If the program is successful the idea may gain the support of the citizens involved, as well as other citizens groups, and they may then apply pressure on government officials to give them more full-time assistance. With local citizen support and pressure from the federal government in the administration of its urban programs, a planning director may be in a good position to ask for more funding. 37 Analysis of the model presented in Figure 3, shows us that the same set of variables is optimal for predicting Productivity. If the direct effect of Propensity to Influ- ence is retained in the model even though it is only sig- nificant at the .08 level, the resulting set of variables account for 66% of the variance; without it, for 59% of the variance. Length of -54 Employment (.58 -'39 Participant 53 -.11 Education Planning ’_, PrOduCthIty .58 ~i;//:",,,—’(f§9) Propensity to’-" Influence Figure 3.--The Path Diagram for Productivity. Given the high correlation between Productivity and Budget Allocation, it is not surprising to find that the same set of predictors has been retained for the model. The interpretation of each model is similar. Departments with larger, more highly educated staffs and larger budgets would be expected to finish more planning studies. The department that scored highest on the Productivity Index is also assisting local participant planning groups to revise sections of the Master Plan for the city that pertain to their vicinities. The Productivity Index consists of more than just the number of studies conducted by each department. Each 38 study is also weighted in terms of the department's degree of responsibility for it. It seems reasonable that as a planning department grows in size and influence it would be able to assume more responsibility over an increasingly wider area of planning. If the need for analysis of a new problem area arose, such a department would be in a good position to assume responsibility. More evidence for this interpretation will be given in the case study below. The Relationship of External Integration to Organizational Effectiveness One of the major findings of the study is that all but one of the variables used to measure the planning de- partments' degree of external integration were deleted from the model. This is consistent with the findings of Catanese and Steiss (1970). Analysis of some of the means of these variables (Table 5) shows the similarity that existed among the three departments studied. The means in the table represent the mean of the means (or scores) for the planners of each department. The mean or score in parentheses is that of the director only. There is very little difference among the means for each planning department. In other words, when all of the planners of each department are used to measure the depart- ment's overall degree of integration with the important decision makers in its external environment, there is no significant difference among the three departments studied. 39 o N Amy h H Amm.av om.o U AHV m.H Amv o.m Awa.av mH.H m Amv H.N Avv >.N AHG.NV N~.H d mafinmnmnEmz mocmocmuud soflpmoHGSEfioo ucmEpHmmmo muHCSEEoo aflocsoo auwo HMGOHDMNHcmmHOHmucH Aom.av om.H Amm.mv NH.N AHV oo.H Amy oo.m o Aoo.mv oo.N Ama.mv mm.m Avv oo.m AHV oo.H m Aom.mv mn.a Aoo.mv mo.~ Avv no.a Avv oo.~ d coflumoflcsasoo cofiumoflcsaeoo Houomuflo pom Macao amusmEuummwpumusH HmucmaunmmwpumucH Ipsm on» cufl3 wuwu on» £uw3 usmfiuummmo Houommnmoflaom Hmuoe soflumoflcseaou sOADMOAGDEEOO Amy oo.m Amv m.m Amy o.m on 00.0 0 Any mm.m Amy o.m Aev o.m AHV om.o m Avv mm.o Any v.~ Any m.m AHV mm.o m m>Husomxm HHocoou cowmmHEEoo mmuno rung suflo nuns maflccmam an“; uqmmMmumwm unmeuummma coflumoflcsfiaou GOHDMOHGDEEOO coflumowcsafioo . . m .COHUMHOOHGH HMfiHmUNO MO mGHDmflOE HOW mQHOOm cmmzll.m mamdfi 40 However, it can readily be seen that there is a great difference among the means and scores reported for the planning directors alone. The director of the department that was highest on Institutionalization and Productivity (Department "A") communicates with members of his planning commission and city council once a day or more (7). The directors of the other two departments do so less often-- once or twice per week (4) or once or twice per month (2). The same pattern is evident for the remaining contacts, except for that of the chief executive. It appears that the frequency of the director's communication with important decision makers in the depart- ment's environment may be positively related to departmental effectiveness. To determine the significance of these relationships would require another study with the planning directors of a larger sample of planning departments. CHAPTER V SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION Summary The objectives of the present study were: (1) to explore the relationship between indicators of the effec- tiveness of city planning departments and their degree of external integration, and (2) to build a predictive model of effectiveness based on knowledge of planning staff characteristics and external integration. The study was based on the general proposition that organizations, es- pecially city planning departments, must be well integrated into the mainstream of the decision-making process of the city and obtain support in their environment to be effec- tive. Specifically, it was intended to use path analysis to construct a model to predict a planning department's degree of institutionalization and level of productivity as a consequence of the properties of its planning staff and its degree of external integration. Questionnaires were personally administered to 21 professional planners in the city planning departments of ‘three medium-sized cities in Michigan. The data were sub- mitted to a step-wise multiple regression using the .05 41 42 level of significance as the criteria for retaining vari- ables. To determine the paths of direct effects, each variable related to external integration was regressed on the staff property variables. Then the percentage of the city budget allocated to the planning departments and their level of productivity were regressed on the combined set of staff property variables and external integration variables. The best set of predictors was the same for each intervening variable associated with organizational effec- tiveness. Length of employment and participant planning directly accounted for 42% of the variance of the budget allocated to the planning departments, and 59% of the vari- ance of the productivity of the planning departments. Edu- cation indirectly affects the criterion variables through the length of employment and the propensity to influence. Propensity to influence works indirectly through participant planning to affect the criterion variables. Its direct effect on productivity was significant only at the .08 level. One of the major findings was that all but one (participant planning) of the external integration variables were found to be insignificantly related to the intervening variables for organizational effectiveness. It appeared as if the external communication of the planning directors of the departments was related to the criterion variables, but the present sample was insufficient to test the signifi- cance of this relationship. 43 Discussion Catanese and Steiss were unsuccessful in their at- tempt to find a relationship between a planning department's level of "planning commitment" and its director's communi- cation with individuals considered to be in the mainstream of the decision process of city government. The present study attempted to retest the same relationship using the external communication of all of the professional planners of the department. No significant differences were found among the three planning departments studied. There was a great difference among the external communication of the directors in the direction hypothesized. However, this may only be characteristic of the sample studied. This author concludes that using the frequency of contacts with key individuals to "map" the external communi- cation network of a planning department is insensitive to the important aSpects of the communication process related to organizational effectiveness. Such a network represents a static picture of a department's external integration at a certain point in time. Its measurement is based on responses to questions like, "How often do you usually communicate with . . . ?" Respondents are required to recall and estimate how often they contact the person listed "on the average," or "generally." Except for the extremes of the scale, the respondents reported some diffi- culty in making such estimations. 44 This suggests that it is not the regularity of com- munication that really matters. Several respondents stated that the frequency of their interaction with key decision makers varied a great deal throughout the year. Their com- munication is oriented to specific issues. In other words, when an issue arises that directly affects one or more of the key individuals in the planning department's environ— ment, then there may be a sequence of frequent interaction for a certain period of time. Once the issue ceases to be salient the level of interaction may decline to the occa- sional communication which characterizes most of the year. It may be the quality and/or the results of their interaction over specific issues that determines whether the planning department will receive support in the future. The timing of their communication may be the most crucial variable. How is the communication network used when an important issue is before the city council? What do the planners do? In their role of professional city planners is it appropriate behavior for them to actively attempt to influence key decision makers? Some of the answers to these questions may be a function of the planning director and his staff: their background characteristics, their level of political motivation, their professional and inter- personal competence, and their perceived credibility. Questions concerning the general frequency of com- munication does not adequately measure the dynamic quality 45 of the communication process. Some of the property vari— ables in the present study appear to have tapped some of the important characteristics of the planning staffs: length of employment (age) and education. The only vari- able that may have captured some of the dynamic quality of the process is propensity to influence. It may represent a number of related dimensions, such as motivation, actual or hypothetical behavior when key decisions arise, and percep- tipg of the appropriate role behaviors of city planning officials. Propensity to influence is the key variable in the model developed in the present study. It is an important determinant of the type of participant planning that will generate a base of community support for a planning depart- ment. Support from some "outside" constituency increases its autonomy, and hence the voice that it has in the govern- mental decision process. Although the direct relationship between propensity to influence and productivity did not reach significance in the present study (p = .29 at the .08 level of significance), additional data suggest that may have played a very important role in initiating and sustain- ing the growth of the largest and most productive planning department in the sample studied. A discussion of how this expansion occurred will be presented in a short case study of planning department "A." 46 A Case Study of Departmental Growth In 1965, planning department "A" had only five pro- fessional planners. Their number had increased to 10 by 1967, and today the staff includes 16 professional planners. During informal discussion with two planners who had been employed during this period of expansion, the author at— tempted to determine what accounted for this rate of growth. There seemed to be a general consensus that the planning director was largely responsible for this expan- sion. The director has been with the department for 10 years. He was described as a "strong planning director" who has been able to "sell the planning approach to the citizens and to the city council." This characteristic of the director is reflected in his "very high" score on pro- pensity to influence the decision process. His work with citizen groups has been instrumental toward improving the position of the planning function in city government. The department's work with citizen groups has had an impact on city council deliberations, especially concerning issues related to current planning and zoning regulations. The "batting average" for planning has gone up accordingly. They get a better endorsement from citizens for planning goals and the city council is very much aware of this. They can no longer "wheel and deal unmonitored by the citizens like they used to do." More citizens now understand the significance of the zoning process and are 47 able to check the city council's decisions in this area. Citizens will telephone or personally contact councilmen to make their views known. These views may be better informed now and more difficult to ignore. An alternative explanation for the department's growth begins with external pressure from the federal government through its urban programs. When the Community Renewal Program (C.R.P.) was first introduced, the city was pressured into increasing the funds for planners on a matched funds basis. This eventually meant the doubling of the planning department's budget. Federal programs also introduced the principle of "maximum feasible participation" of citizens in the areas to be affected by their programs. However, it was not the input of federal programs pgr_§g_that expanded the city planning department. The other two cities in the present study also had Community Renewal Programs. Their staffs did not automatically in- crease with federal programs. The C.R.P. only offered the opportunity to expand the functions of the planning depart- ment. Whether the department used this opportunity depended upon how aggressively the director responded. In 1967 department "A" decided to establish their own com- munity renewal planners and they organized a Community Renewal Planning Board that had overlapping membership with the Citizens Community Renewal Planning Board. The planning department eventually was able to convince the members of 48 these boards that the planning function for the urban. renewal projects should be done by their department and not by a separate group of planners. To accomplish this the planning department had to "go out on a limb" and hire part-time planners to perform their regular planning functions while some of their more experienced planners were assigned to C.R.P. Additional planners may have eventually been covered by federal funds. Initially, however, the department had to overextend its own budget. Consequently, they encountered some difficulty in "making ends meet" at the end of the fiscal year. The same procedure was employed with the Federal Housing Commission, and a semi-autonomous body, not respon- sible to the city council. The planning department used Federal Housing Commission funds to do their planning for them, thus averting the establishment of another planning unit. When Model Cities was introduced the same pattern was repeated. The Model Cities Project now has a chief planner, a physical planner, and an economic planner on their staff, but all three are part of the city planning department and directly responsible to its director. Having three planners inside--but actually outside-- the city planning department has served to further increase the autonomy of the planning function in city government. These three planners report feeling more active as "advo- cates" in the planning process than members of the main 49 department. They are still unable to speak for the citizens at city council meetings. They could not do this for long and still maintain their effectiveness as members of the planning department. Yet they can be more active in influ- encing their constituents in Model City areas to speak for themselves on certain issues. This process was actually described as "co-opting" the city government by involving its planners in the Model Cities Program. At times this has resulted in inevitable conflict between members of the Model Cities Program and the city's mayor. However, for the city council has generally re- spected the planning department's participation in federal programs for the city. They have supported the idea of the planning department's assuming more projects and taking the role of planning coordination for the various programs in the city. In some ways, this might provide them with more control than they might have had otherwise. Implications for Further Research The findings of the present study provide evidence that it may be more enlightening to utilize multiple sets of variables reflecting the causal process to predict organizational effectiveness. This approach proved useful for the study of city planning departments. Path analysis with step-wise multiple regression assisted the researcher to reduce a large, complex set of variables to a more mean- ingful pattern of direct and indirect relationships. Both 50 staff characteristics and a measure of external integration were needed to explain the causal process influencing effectiveness. Along with the study of Catanese and Steiss (1970), the present study failed to find a relationship between effectiveness and measures of external integration based on frequency of communication with key decision—makers in the department's environment. This finding is interpreted as a failure to operationalize the most important aspects of the communication process. Future studies should continue to explore the pattern of relationships among property vari- ables, external communication, and effectiveness. However, better methods of measurement must be developed. First, it is necessary to find better measures of organizational effectiveness. For further study of planning departments it will be especially beneficial to use indi- cators of effectiveness that are not as dependent upon the size of the organization as the ones used in the present study. The latter would prove insensitive to real differ- ences in effectiveness among planning departments of approx- imately the same size. Second, new measures of the communication process are required. Future studies should attend to the important variables that were suggested by the present study. Spe- cifically, more attention should be given to the timing of external communication as important events arise, and to 51 the content and outcomes of specific interactions with key decision-makers. This author believes that these are the more important aspects of a planning department's external communication. That these aspects of the communication process would be difficult to study in real organizations should be obvious. This author suggests that the case study method be used with organizations at the extremes of organizational effectiveness in order to explore more fully the variables identified here. The purpose of the case studies would be to create better methods of measuring these variables. A variety of measures could be tested and validated in the organizations used for the case study. If more efficient instruments can be developed to measure timing, content, and outcome of communication, then these could be used in a larger sample of similar organizations. Such a two-phase approach would permit a refinement and validation of the instruments, and would overcome the lack of generalizability characteristic of case studies of organizations. REFERENCES REFERENCES Altshuler, A.A. The city planning process: A political analysis. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965. Catanese, A.J., & Steiss, A.W. Systemic planning: Theory and application. Massachusetts: D. C. Heath Company, 1970. Chapin, F.S., Jr. Existing techniques of shaping urban growth, in H.W. Eldredge (Ed.) Taming megalopolis. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967, 726-45. Dayland, R.T., & Parker, J.A. Roles of the planner in urban development, in Chapin, F.S., & Weiss, S.F. (Eds.) Urban growth dynamics in a regional cluster of cities. New York: Wiley, 1962, 189. Downs, A. Inside bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1966. Form, W.H., & Sauer, W.L. Community influentials in a middle sized city. General Bulletin No. 5, Insti- tute for Community Development and Services, Michi- gan State University, 1959. Johnson, H.M. Sociology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1960, 15-47. Kaufman, H. The forest ranger. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960, 75-80. Kline, G.F. Media time budgeting as a consequence of demo- graphic and life style characteristics, from unpub- lished Ph.D. thesis, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 1969. Price, J.L. Organizational effectiveness: An inventory of propositions. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1968. 52 53 Selznick, P. TVA and the grass roots. Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1953. Stanton, A.H., & Schwartz, M.S. The mental hospital. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1954, 46-48. Warner, W.L., & Low, J.O. The social system of the modern factory. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1947. Wright, S. Path coefficients and path regressions: Alternative or complementary concepts? Biometrics, 16, 1960, 189-202. 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