Search Results

In the four chapters of Part II, public management ideas that loosely correspond to each of the four polar world views identified by cultural theory are discussed; here the cultural‐theory framework is mixed with a historical perspective to survey recurring approaches to public management that can be loosely characterized as hierarchist (Ch. 4), individualist (Ch. 5), egalitarian (this chapter), and fatalist (Ch. 7). Like individualism and hierarchism, egalitarianism embodies a particular vision of control of public management both within organizations and by the society at large, and that approach to organization can be linked to a broader vision of good government that takes groupism rather than bossism, choicism, or chancism as the point of departure or central organizing principle for co‐operative behaviour. The egalitarian approach to organization involves at least three closely interrelated elements: these are group self‐management, control by mutuality, and maximum face‐to‐face accountability. A fourth idea often associated with egalitarianism is the view that the process by which decisions are reached in an organization or group is just as important, if not more so, than the results or outcomes in a narrow sense—i.e. the achievement of the substantive policy goals of egalitarians is not held to be more important than reaching the process goal of decision‐making through high‐participation weak‐leadership structures. The main sections are: What Egalitarians Believe; The Managerial Critique of Egalitarianism; and Varieties of Egalitarianism.

This chapter examines the role of digital media activities in the dynamics of the Umbrella Movement. It demonstrates how the participants of the movement engaged in a wide range of digital media activities, some of which were integral to the dynamics of the occupation. Digital media activities allowed participants to construct their own modes of participation. Digital media activities were found to relate to higher degrees of involvement in the Umbrella Movement at the individual level, but higher degrees of involvement were found to relate to lower levels of willingness to listen to the central organizers of the occupation. An analysis of social media contents also found a significant degree of decentralization of the protest campaign. Digital media activities therefore both empowered the movement and introduced forces of decentralization that constrained the organizers’ capability of negotiating with the targets.