Micro-settings
For the locus of the ‘street level’ the variety of implementing organiza- tions has to be mapped first.5 Distinguishing between dimensions regard- ing the character of outputs and outcomes, James Q. Wilson (1989) speaks of production organizations, procedural organizations, craft organiza- tions and coping organizations (see also Gregory, 1995a, 1995b). Considine and Lewis (1999) investigated the impact of system changes on front-line staff in Australia. They specified four distinctive images of bureaucratic work: procedural bureaucracy, corporate bureaucracy, market bureaucracy and network bureaucracy. These images each have different foci on the use of goals, relationships with clients, approaches to supervision, disciplinary strategies, and relations with other organiza- tions. What Considine and Lewis found in practice was only three distinct images: ‘Practitioners appeared to follow three common repertoires, but these were not determined by the type of organization they worked in’ (p. 467). The distinct market and corporate orientations seemed to have merged into a single one.
Aiming at parsimony and summarizing the insights from various dis- ciplines, in which the classifications of organizations are numerous, we propose to characterize implementation organizations as task-oriented, market-oriented or professional organizations. Though in most instances a specific kind of organization is first responsible for the implementation of a specific public policy on the street level, often the co-operation of a variety of locally operating organizations is required – if not formally, then certainly in a material sense (compare Hjern and Porter ’s concept
of ‘implementation structures’ [1981]). The ‘regimes’ under which these different organizations work may vary (C. Stone, 1989; Stoker, 1991), as can the responses from target groups: business corporations or citizens. The degree of that variation may influence implementation. The behav- iour of front-line staff has been analysed by scholars like Kagan (1978) and other sociologists of law, as well as by organizational sociologists (see Chapter 2 of this book). Some of the former distinguish styles of rule application (Knegt, 1986). In their coherence, the resources, norms and schemes of interpretation used constitute what Terpstra and Havinga (1999) call ‘implementation styles’. As a summarizing characteristic for micro-settings the nature of the prevailing orientation can be used. Is that orientation one of rule application, service, or one directed towards consul- tation and consensus?
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