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Bureaucratization, Punctuated Equilibrium and School Budgets.
- Source :
-
Conference Papers - Southern Political Science Association . 2004 Annual Meeting, New Orleans, A, p1-29. 30p. 3 Charts, 1 Graph. - Publication Year :
- 2004
-
Abstract
- For half of a century, models of non-rational behavior have grown in popularity for explaining the behavior of administrative organizations. However, models of non-rational behavior are notoriously difficult to test because non-rational behavior is often difficult to separate from fully rational behavior. Recent research has suggested that particular types of non-rational processes should produce "punctuated" equilibria rather than "instantaneous" equilibria. In these non-rational processes, a decision-maker under responds to changes for a long period of time. Once pressure for change becomes overwhelming, the decision maker adopts a radical change. This is called "punctuation". The key to identifying this type of non-rationality of a processes' rationality is the comparative success of fitting the observed behavior to "punctuated" rather than "instantaneous" equilibria. True, Jones, and Baumgartner (1999) developed a method for comparing the distribution of decision outputs as a strategy for assessing the relative degree of "punctuation" in the decision processes. By assessing the kurtosis (or "peakedness") of the distribution of decision outputs, one can get a sense of the excess (compared to a standard, normal distribution) of low and high rates of change - a sign of punctuated equilibrium. This paper extends these recent developments by adapting the method to a comparative kurtosis framework. The results suggest that bureaucracy in K-12 schools serves to reduce (rather than amplify) the punctuations in budgeting processes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential extension of the empirical results and modifications to the testing procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Conference Papers - Southern Political Science Association
- Publication Type :
- Conference
- Accession number :
- 16055830
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/spsa_proceeding_16521.pdf