The Bureaucrat and the Public: A Study of Informational Perspectives

Abstract

Sociological analysis assumes that an individual's position in a largescale administrative organization conditions his knowledge and administrative perspectives. Specific knowledge about clients (functional knowledge) can be distinguished from that concerning strategic goals and broader issues (substantive knowledge). An analysis of the impact of position in the organizational hierarchy of a sample of upperand lower-level public servants in three government agencies in the Detroit metropolitan area confirmed the accepted but untested proposition that the higher the position, the less knowledge about the clients of the agency (functional knowledge).1 Morris Janowitz is a member of the faculty of the Department of Sociology in the University of Michigan; William Delany teaches sociology in the University of Kansas.

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