Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes: Origins and Development of the U.S. Navy's Officer Personnel System, 1793-1941Stanford University Press, 2001 - 883 páginas This monumental study provides an innovative and powerful means for understanding institutions by applying problem solving theory to the creation and elaboration of formal organizational rules and procedures. Based on a meticulously researched historical analysis of the U.S. Navy s officer personnel system from its beginnings to 1941, the book is informed by developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, operations research, and management science. It also offers important insights into the development of the American administrative state, highlighting broader societal conflicts over equity, efficiency, and economy. Considering the Navy s personnel system as an institution, the book shows that changes in that system resulted from a long-term process of institutional design, in which formal rules and procedures are established and elaborated. Institutional design is here understood as a problem-solving process comprising day-to-day efforts of many decision makers to resolve the difficulties that block completion of their tasks. The officer personnel system is treated as a problem of organized complexity, with many components interacting in systematic, intricate ways, its structure usually imperfectly understood by the participants. Consequently, much problem solving entails decomposing the larger problem into smaller, more manageable components, closing open constraints, and balancing competing value premises. The author finds that decision makers are unlikely to generate many alternatives, since searching for existing solutions elsewhere or inventing new ones is an expensive, difficult enterprise. Choice is usually a matter of accepting, rejecting, or modifying a single solution. Because time constraints force decisions before problems are well structured, errors are frequently made, problem components are at best only partially addressed, and the chosen solution may not solve the problem at all and even if it does is likely to generate unanticipated side-effects that worsen other problem components. In its definitive treatment of a critical but hitherto entirely unresearched dimension of the administration of the U.S. Navy, the book provides full details over time concerning the elaboration of officer grades and titles, creation of promotion by selection, sea duty requirements, graded retirement, staff-line conflicts, the establishment of the Reserve, and such unusual subjects as tombstone promotions. In the process, it transcends the specifics of the personnel system to give a broad picture of the Navy s history over the first century and a half of its development. |
Conteúdo
Questions and Methods | 28 |
From Expedience to Permanence 17931801 | 51 |
Economy on Their Mind 180210 | 77 |
Winds of Change 181121 | 96 |
Planning Without Action 182228 | 113 |
Some Useless Suckers 182936 | 136 |
Movement Toward Rationalization 183744 | 167 |
Initiatives and Proposals 184552 | 199 |
Like Warring Creeds | 419 |
Everyone Gets Into the Act 189599 | 437 |
Scarcity and Humps 19001904 | 467 |
A Profusion of Alternatives 19051908 | 493 |
Equitys Last Gasp 190912 | 525 |
Efficiency Triumphant 191316 | 553 |
Mobilization Demobilization and Working | 593 |
Aviators and Humps 192532 | 629 |
The Lean and Slippered Pantaloon of Old Age 185355 | 220 |
Aftermath of the Naval Efficiency Board 185660 | 244 |
The Union Torn Asunder 186162 | 271 |
The Rebellion Drags On 186365 | 297 |
Back to the Doldrums 186669 | 319 |
Hard Times 187080 | 336 |
Slowly Under Way 188188 | 365 |
Advance and Promise 188994 | 397 |
Sweet Geraniums 193338 | 680 |
Amendments and Mobilization 193941 | 729 |
Conclusions | 767 |
A Chronology of Officer Personnel Legislation | 807 |
Chairmen of Standing Naval Affairs Committees | 814 |
Index | 841 |
Termos e frases comuns
62nd Congress 76th Congress active list age-in-grade amendment annual appointed April army ARSN authorized Bureau Bureau of Navigation cadets captains cers commissioned commodore Congress congressional considered created debate December decision economy efficiency eligible engineers enlisted ensigns equity established examination existing February flag officers fleet frigates furlough graduates Hale higher grades House naval committee Ibid increase institutional January July June junior lieutenants legislation lieutenant commanders line officers March masters commandant ment midshipmen Naval Affairs naval aviation naval officers Naval War College Navy Register navy's number of officers offi officer corps officer personnel problems officer personnel system passed percent permanent president problem representation problem solving proposed rank rear admiral recommended records reduced remained Republican reserve list retired list sea duty sea service secretary Section selection boards Senate naval committee senior officers served session ships shore duty solutions temporary tion U.S. Navy vacancies value premises vice admiral Vinson