This research paper examines the utility and characteristic weaknesses of hierarchical or hierarchist organizations, public or private. From the standpoint of cultural theorists, hierarchically organized bodies tend to make effective and efficient use of resources for the purpose of maintaining themselves in power and are therefore highly stable. Under non-static or dynamic conditions, their capacity to resist change often leads to their becoming detached from reality and ossifying. Hierarchist organizations generally have within their midst or otherwise compete with elements of other types of cultures. Depending on the balance among these forces and the nature of changes faced by hierarchist organizations, their ability to accommodate and adapt to change can be enhanced or attenuated.
Cultural theorists seek to explain "how [different] ways of life maintain (and fail to maintain) themselves" (Thompson, Ellis & Wildavsky, 1990, 1). In their view, the key to understanding any culture is how [people] want to relate to other people and how they want others to relate to them" (Grenstad & Selle, 1995, p. 12). In organizing themselves socially, individuals form and join groups in which the ties among them and the constraints on the actions of members of such groups (the grid) are strong or weak. Wildavsky says that "the strength or weakness of group boundaries and the numerous or few, varied or singular, prescriptions binding or freeing individuals are the components of their culture" (1987, p. 284).
Hierarchist organizations are one of four types of cultures, the others being egalitarian, individualist or fatalist. Hierarchist organizations are collectivist in nature with sharply defined outer boundaries or roles. Authority is concentrated at the top of the culture or organization and flows downward in accordance with prescribed rules. Hierarchists believe that "essential order . . . can be achieved only by [all members] agreeing t...