The Dynamics of Domain Negotiation

Decision is an important part of organizational life. Definitions of making reflect our habituation to see it as an active process-a conscious, deliberate effort to conclude, settle, or make up one's mind-but it has a passive dimension as well. We propose to explore this passive dimension because what an organization does not do may be more important than what it does do. In this respect, the focus on specific operational decisions that characterizes much of the literature on organizational decision is deficient. First, it ignores the more general, contextual implications of a decision for an organization's domain (i.e., its role in the larger, social environment of which it is a part). Second, because different levels within an organization have different functions, the types of issues to be decided and the manner in which they are handled are different as well. Consider the case of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the decision issue of the geographic distribution of research awards. NSF's enabling legislation contains a somewhat contradictory mandate when applied to the proposal-selection process. On the one hand, NSF is to strengthen research and education in the sciences; on the other, it is to avoid the undue concentration of awards. In short, decisions about support are to be based on two, potentially competing principles: the perceived in the proposals submitted and considerations of balance among the states. Because of its scientific orientation, and because individual and institutional capabilities to perform high-quality research are not randomly distributed, NSF has historically stressed merit. The tension between merit and equity has been perennially demonstrated in the foundation's budget hearings on Capitol Hill for more than a quarter of a century. In the view of the congress, the NSF's reliance on has been excessive, and the lawmakers have become restive over the geographic maldistribution of NSF research awards. Yet, not until 1978 did NSF initiate a program whose principal objective was geographic distribution. How might we interpret NSF's actions, or lack thereof, on geographic distribution? Is the foundation a recalcitrant bureaucracy? Is the National Science Board, the NSF's policy arm, primarily reactive? Are the

Distribution (mathematics · Domain (mathematical analysis · Dynamics (music · Foundation (evidence · Negotiation · Political science · Sociology · Innovation and Knowledge Management · Law · Mathematics · scientometrics and bibliometrics research

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