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1. Groups and organizations: Groups and organizations form the context of many social
activities; both have goals. Organizations include governmental institutions, private
companies and NGOs. Organizations are more permanent than groups. Members of an
organization share its goals. Organizations are open systems where the environment
affects them, and they affect it. An organization is a social system and is susceptible to
analysis like any other social system. Informal networks and group relationships explain
the effectiveness of organizations (Alexander, 1988)
2. Bureaucracy: The ends of a public body are often vague, broad and implicit, and
fragment. Bureaucracy is a special kind of organization (Alexander, 1988). Most of
decisions made within public bodies are based on “political” rather than “technical”
considerations. Among the reasons for this situation that future is often uncertain.
Conditions within the public institution and outside it always changes, thus precise
prediction, projection and forecasting are not always possible (Banfield, 1973).
3. Private Sector: To great extent, private sector companies are radically different.
Decisions are made to maximize profit and minimize costs. For this reason decisions are
based on technical considerations as well as political and social acceptances.
4. Non-Profit Organizations: Non-profit organizations are flexible to reach those
unfortunate. For this reason they go beyond the Prince (the State) and the Market (the
Private Sector Companies). In addition to considering the views of their constituents, they
have to consider the interests of their sponsors.
5. Communities: A community is another form of an organization. People belong to a
community because they share a common aspect. The interaction between local politics
and organizational interaction constitute the context for planning. Three schools attempt to
explain these interactions.
- The first is the elitist (or known as social stratification theory), where decisions are
made as a result of small groups of powerful individuals often the rich.
- The second school of thought is the pluralist interplay of numerous interest groups.
Decisions are the result of certain coalition of individuals who are more powerful.
- The third school of thought that attempts to explain community decision making views
the community as an arena for interaction of institutionalized (organized interests)
groups, with policy resulting from strategies.
Titany answered the question on October 28, 2021 at 06:09