GETZELS-GUBA MODEL

Jacob W. Getzels
Egon G. Guba

Organizational (Nomothetic) Dimension

Institution Role Expectation

Social Group Climate Intentions Observed

System Behavior

Individual Personality Need

Disposition

Personal (Ideographic) Dimension

One of the most widely recognized and most useful framework for studying and
understanding administrative and supervisory behavior is the social systems analysis
developed primarily for educators by Jacob Getzels and Egon Guba.
These social systems theorists view administration and supervision as a social process that
occurs within a social system. Process and context can be examined according to this
view, from structural, functional, and operational perspectives. Structurally, administration
and supervision are considered to be a series of superordinate-subordinate relationships
within a social system. Functionally, this hierarchy of relationships (executive to manager,
manager to foreman, foreman to worker, etc.) is the basis for allocating and integrating
roles, personnel, and facilities to accomplish organizational goals. Operationally, the
process occurs in person-to-person interaction.

Getzels and Guba use the term social system in a conceptual rather than a descriptive way.
They conceive of this system as containing two interdependent but interacting dimensions.
The first dimension consists of the institution, which is defined in terms of roles, which are
in turn defined in terms of role expectations, all of which are carefully designed to fulfill
the goals of the institution.

They maintain that all institutions have the following characteristics and imperative
functions in common:

1. Institutions have purposes. They are established to perform certain functions and are
legitimized by client groups on the basis of these functions.

2. Institutions are structural. Institutional goals are achieved through task diversification.
Therefore roles are established with appropriate role descriptions. Each role is assigned
certain responsibilities and resources, including authority for implementing given tasks.
 The ideas are conceived and responsibilities allocated in terms of actors, as defined
below, rather than of personalities.

3. Institutions are normative. Roles serve as norms for the behavior of those who occupy
the roles. Each actor or role incumbent is expected to behave is certain predetermined
ways in order to retain a legitimate position in the organization.

4. Institutions are sanction bearing. Institutions have at their disposal appropriate positive
and negative sanctions for ensuring compliance with established norms. Employees
who are rate busters in the eyes of other employees, for example, may be treated to the
silent treatment or to a whisper campaign. Those who appear to be deviants wait
longer for supplies, are given undesirable assignments, and are often swamped with
admistrivia.

The operation of institutions is defined and analyzed in terms of the subunit role. Roles
represent the various positions, offices, and status prerogatives that exist within the
institution and are themselves defined in terms of role expectations. Roles are generally
institutional givens and, therefore, are not formulated to fit one or another personality.
Behaviors associated with a given role are arranged on a conceptual continuum extending
from those required to those prohibited. Certain behaviors are considered absolutely
mandatory (that the employee must show up for work), and others are absolutely forbidden
(that an employee excepts kickbacks). Between these extremes are other behavior patterns
– some recommended, others disapproved, but all to varying degrees permissible. Roles
are best understood when examined in relation to other roles. The employee helps us to
understand the foremen and so on.

In the absence of individuals with complex and unique personalities, the organizational
dimension described above provides for maximum organizational predictability. This
aspect of the social system is called the nomothetic dimension. The second aspect, the
ideographic dim3ension, ads the human element to the social system formulation. As the
institutional dimension was analyzed in terms of role and expectation, so the institutional
dimension is similarly analyzed and defined operationally in terms of personality and need
disposition.

The ideographic dimension is similar in format (but not in substance) to the nomothetic
dimension in that individuals, like institutions, have goals that they express through their
personalities and pursue according to their need dispositions.

The two dimensions of the social system are assumed to be in constant interaction. In its
nomothetic dimension the organization strives to socialize the individual to its own image
and ends, while in its ideographic dimension the individual strives to socialize the
organization to his or her own image and ends. Behavior, then, in any social system is a
function of the interaction between unique personalities and preestablished roles.
Conformity to the institution, its roles, and its expectations leads to organizational
effectiveness, while conformity to individuals, their personalities, and their need
dispositions leads to individual efficiency.
Getzels and Guba identify a number of conflict situations that could potentially result from
the organization’s interaction with its human inhabitants. Among them are role-personality
conflicts that result from a discrepancy between the pattern of expectations attached to a
given role and the pattern of need dispositions of the role incumbent. A manager with a
high dependence orientation would find a role characterized by autonomous and
independent action quite uncomfortable; employees with a professional and technical need
to interact with organizational policy makers who are defensive, authoritarian, and non-
communicative experience similar role-personality conflict. Multiple but conflicting
expectations for the same role are another source of role conflict. Supervisors who are
expected by some employees to provide frequent direction and by others to stay away
experience this type of conflict.