College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
Administration A s a Science and an A r t 

The Executive in Action by Marshall E. 
Dimock. New York City, Harper, 1945. ix, 
276P. 
In recent years a respectable literature of 

library administration has been accumulating. 
In the earlier stages, it was largely repre-
sented by ad hoc, rule-of-thumb pronounce-
ments. As library administration has come of 
age, of necessity it has increasingly been re-
fined and systematized through drawing on 
systematic library studies and experiments. 
Likewise, it has built upon the worth-while 
findings of students of administration in other 
fields and students of administration in gen-
eral. 

The war years have produced an increased 
flow of such valuable general administration 
materials which the library administrator can 
only ignore at his peril, for it provides bases 
and breadth for the specialized studies in his 
own field. 

One of the best of these recent works is 
Marshall E. Dimock's The Executive in Ac-
tion, which is the first detailed published 
analysis of the day-to-day work of a top 
executive—a study of what one able executive 
did and why. The quality of the book results 
in large measure from the happy blending of 
the author's theoretical and practical back-
grounds—his years as a professor of public 
administration at the University of Chicago, 
his detailed studies of the administration of 
both business firms and government agencies, 
and his establishment and administration of 
the Recruitment and Manning Organization 
of the W a r Shipping Administration. He is 
thus able effectively to combine general ex-
planation with examples from personal ex-
perience, in his effort to show the universality 
of large-scale management's chief problems, 
whether in business or in government. 

Like Urwick and some other leading au-
thorities on administration, Dimock feels that 
the field has developed a sufficient number 
of valid generalizations based on experience 
to have its scientific aspects. But the human 
aspects of administration will always keep it 
also to a considerable extent an art. He is 

aware of the delicacy of administrative rela-
tionships in which the intuitive sense of the 
leader, produced by good experience and good 
judgment, counts for much. 

Dimock differs with much recent adminis-
trative thought in urging caution in the 
expansion of separately organized staff func-
tions. He feels that these should be kept 
to the minimum of efficiency and tied in 
closely with the flow of executive work, but 
(in general) not in the chief executive's office. 
Thus, the chief has maximum time for super-
vision of line departments. Thus, the good 
staff officer will feel himself a part of the 
stream of operations but will retain his per-
spective. 

Public relations, planning, and personnel, as 
staff functions, come in for incisive comment. 
The first is given a wide and adequate in-
terpretation. The author emphasizes plan-
ning as a comprehensive, continuous, and 
democratic process, underlining the point that 
major contributions to both goals and 
strategy often originate far down the line of 
command. The interrelatedness of an or-
ganization's parts and problems is presented 
as a demand for comprehensive and continu-
ous planning. An interesting section discusses 
the role of advisory groups in the administra-
tive process, together with suggested tactics 
for administrators. 

Personnel comes in for detailed treatment. 
More leeway is urged for the chief to make 
free choice of his chief assistants in order to 
assure compatibility, a condition rated high by 
the author. Modification of civil service 
procedure is also urged for the rank and file 
of employees, making the personnel officer a 
truly advisory official and not an executive 
official. The author emphasizes that results 
are obtained largely by happy combinations 
of personnel rather than by systems alone. 

Dimock regards the chief functions of the 
top executive as three in number: keeping the 
enterprise on an even keel ("he must con-
stantly expect the unexpected") ; delegating 
as much as possible; and using the rest of his 
time for planning. The first includes the 

JULY, 1946 1 277 



executive as trouble shooter and as supervisor, 
which he recognizes as demanding a fine bal-
ance between too strict and too loose a check, 
either extreme resulting in reduced efficiency. 
But he would check at least once daily with 
subordinates who report directly to him. 
Good supervision will not prove odious to 
either party, for the good executive can be 
said to have influence with people rather than 
power over them. This influence will be 
engendered by the executive's having superior 
ability which will be recognized as such, by 
giving proper recognition to the contributions 
of others, and otherwise being fair to associ-
ates and subordinates. One of the executive's 
big tasks may be that of bringing together 
and harmonizing conflicting viewpoints of 
his chief assistants, since potential friction 
increases with the depth of specialization of 
people with different backgrounds. Effective 
techniques of staff conference are suggested. 

Central-Peripheral Relationship 
The author feels that the central-peripheral 

relationship should be one of centralized policy 
decision and check with decentralized execu-
tion. Since management is the power to 
determine what happens to and through per-
sonalities, he opposes Burnham's philosophy of 
a managerial elite. He agrees with Urwick 
that in a complex social order, people at all 
employment levels can exercise some measure 
of leadership. And he feels that encourage-
ment of people on all levels to exercise some 
aspects of leadership promotes the interests of 
both the organization and its individuals. 
The extent and types of power delegated will, 
of course, vary with the personal qualities of 
the chief and his subordinates and with the 
subject involved. Lack of proper delegation, 
however, may indicate conceit, perfectionism, 
or lack of self-confidence on the part of the 
chief, any one of which may be fatal to his 
administration. In feeling that the chief 
"must be steeped in the detail of his organiza-
tion and yet not lose sight of the grand 
strategy . . .," the author may himself err 
somewhat. He seems to feel that the chief 
cannot delegate a great deal of top super-
vision, public relations, and planning work. 

While Dimock has written a volume of the 
inspirational type which is a happy combina-
tion of the theoretical and the practical, it is 
ably supplemented by Chester I. Barnard's 

The Functions of the Executive (Harvard, 
1944) and Lyndall Urwick's The Elements of 
Administration (Harper, 1944). The first 
gives a stimulating philosophical approach to 
administration, with emphasis on those in-
tangibles of effective, democratic day-to-day 
personal relationships (the informal organiza-
tion), which Dimock has acutely shown as 
capable of inspiring supreme achievement or 
institutionalizing sabotage under a placid sur-
face of formal correctness and genuineness. 

Urwick believes that there is a logical and 
scientific foundation for the art of administra-
tion. On the basis of his acute analysis of 
the conclusions of leading authorities, he is 
confident in stating a group of verifiable 
principles. Most authorities agree with this 
thesis; but an occasional penetrating chal-
lenge comes from the pages of the specialized 
journals, such as Public Management, The 
Personnel Journal, The Public Personnel Re-
view, and The Public Administration Review. 
A good example is Herbert Simon's "The 
Proverbs of Administration" (Public Admin-
istration Review 6:53-67, Winter 1946), 
which raises modifying questions regarding 
such widely accepted principles as those which 
hold that administrative efficiency is almost 
always increased in large organizations by 
specialization of tasks, arranging employees 
in a hierarchy of authority, limiting the execu-
tive's span of control to only a few deputies, 
and placing workers in groups for pur-
poses of control according to a single criterion: 
e.g., purpose, process, clientele, or place. 

W e might conclude with a word about bu-
reaucracy, a much-maligned term but a 
reality throughout the worlds of private and 
governmental business. Joseph M . Juran 
devotes a small but penetrating book to this 
phenomenon (Bureaucracy: A Challenge to 
Better Management, Harper, 1944), em-
phasizing its strengths, weaknesses, and 
potentialities. Dimock's chapter on "The 
Structural Groove" likewise emphasizes how 
the executive's ability and tactics may deter-
mine whether he can use the bureaucracy 
effectively or it uses him for its purposes. 

There is no royal road to success in a 
profession which is an art and is striving to 
become in part a science. But the current 
literature of the field holds forth promise of 
being an increasingly effective guide along the 
way.—fVilliam P. Tucker. 

278 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES