Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

9-11-1968

Abstract

When the federal government's War on Poverty began, it was based on the assumption that economically depressed urban and rural areas could be stimulated into economic activity through the massive use of federal funds. After sufficient time had passed for trends to develop, it was evident that the funds were going into urban areas at the expense of rural areas. This unequal usage of funds existed even though the same types of organizations which could use federal funds were present in both urban and rural areas. A Presidential Task Force selected Sandoval County, New Mexico, as one of three counties in the United States to deploy a change agent. The task of the change agent was to induce rural organizations to participate in the War on Poverty by sponsoring federal programs. This task required a strategy on the part of the change agent for altering the action patterns of specific target agencies, thus generating organizational change. The statement of the problem centers around three questions, namely:

1. What dysfunctional forces are- present, with reference to federal, state, and local organizations at the rural county level, which prevent the utilization of greater amounts of federal money inputs for the purpose of project development?

2. How does the change agent manipulate the social system elements of the target system, and what is the effect on the organizational equilibrium?

3. What is the nature of the new organizational equilibrium?

The author spent one year in Sandoval County acting out the role of a participant-observer. He observed the Change Agent manipulating the independent variables of stress-strain, communication, and systemic linkage, and recorded the effect on the dependent variable of organi­zational equilibrium. The author found that the Change Agent could influence the decision-making process of an organization by strategically injecting stress into the system. It was also found that by providing specific information and by establishing systemic linkages between target organizations, the means to achieve new goals could be acquired. Statements of relationship which were derived from this study are presented in the form of final hypotheses with the hope that another analyst will, under different conditions, test them.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Richard Lee Holemon

Second Committee Member

James Gordon Cooper

Third Committee Member

Marshall Rutherford Nason

Fourth Committee Member

Horacio Ulibarri

Fifth Committee Member

Tom Wiley

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