Differential Administrative Capacity and Organizational Development: A Kibbutz Case Study

Abstract

This paper presents a discontinuous analysis of organizational development and the part played by administrative capacity considered as a summation of individual attributes. Based on 20 years'study of one kibbutz, it is suggested that there are qualitatively different levels of demand for administrative capacity, which can be identified and which, if they are not in equilibrium with available aggregate supply, cause serious organizational disturbance. In particular, imbalance in the supply-demand equation is presented as an alternative explanation of large-scale defection of members in the case study. Analysis of the career progressions of a number of kibbutz managers supports the contention that the rate of development of administrative capacity varies and that training cannot lift managers through the critical boundaries associated with different strata of work.