Governance of organizations between text and practice
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
Day after day, organizations prove how vital they are to the development of society and the achievement of its goals.
Human groups cannot succeed and achieve what they aspire to if they are not organized within a managerial coordination framework which the science of organization and management has traditionally called “Munazzamah”, which is the Arabic translation of the expression Organization. As for the word “Institution” it was adopted in the Arabic language in order to facilitate the understanding of what the researcher in the field of organizational science and organizations means. This field has become an independent branch of the management science and the sociology of organizations - or institutions for short. During the present article, we will focus on the difference between institution and organization.
The concept of organization includes every human group that agrees to work collectively in order to reach the goals that were predetermined by the founding group and adopted by those who wish to adhere to this organization. This organization could be a business enterprise, i.e. a for-profit organization, or a non-profit, civil, or social organization, all of which have been placed in the category of what we call private voluntary organizations or non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
In both cases, it is necessary to organize in order to be effective and to avoid wasting the resources of these organizations. And if the waste in profit-oriented organizations is subject to accountability leading to retribution from the perpetrator, then the non-profit organizations have followed the same path of efficiency in performance, not with the aim of making profits - and this is not an issue- but with the aim of serving the largest number of beneficiaries in vulnerable groups or those with special needs.
What binds people together in these organizations are the regulations in force, which are like a contract that constitutes the law-reference of the contracting parties, as the legal science says. This situation is quite similar to the constitutions and laws that govern the relations between people in society. Rather, we can say that the systems that sponsor the work of organizations, both profit and non-profit, are the result of the constitutions of countries and all other laws that regulate relations between individuals in a society.
All of what we mentioned above includes formal relations that are subject to the provisions of written regulations.
As for the other type of relationships, which we call institutions, we may find within it what is formal and what is informal.
An institution in the sociological sense is every socially acceptable and legitimate custom or practice, including what may result from official texts. This includes for instance periodic meetings, dialogue sessions and decision-making processes, some of which result from practices and methods that the team has “invented” during the performance of its duties, including the Organizational Culture, Leadership Styles, and some practices, habits and methods of dealing with the internal environment or with the external environment of the organization. This dimension of work is described as informal, and it inevitably finds its roots and legitimacy in the formal dimension of each organization.
In every organization, the formal dimension coexists with the informal dimension, provided that the second does not dominate the first. If this happens, the institution will be subject to disintegration or decay.
Organizations that operate on the basis of habit and custom and continue in this direction, are prone either to disappear from their surroundings or become marginalized.
We say this with full certainty that we live in a highly changing world, and if we are not flexible enough to adapt, this transforming environment may cancel us out. This has been proven to be true, and for this reason legal jurisprudence has been developed, as the fossilization of laws and regulations makes the organization a rigid and unviable group. The veneration of texts is one of the most dangerous menace to administrative, leadership and organizational work, but ignoring and circumventing texts is more dangerous as this approach opens the doors to manipulating decisions and thereby endangering the fate of organizations.
When the text obstructs good performance, we do not circumvent it, but modify it to serve the interest of the organized group. Ignoring the texts, makes the organized group lose its reference, and its work becomes subject to discretion, improvisation, and the whims of the influential, and these trends have foreboding consequences.
The texts are the reference for the work of organized groups and the guarantor of their effectiveness, and updating these texts by reviewing them and striving to make them compatible with the needs of the times is the guarantee for the progress of human society.
This is the logic of our work in the Middle East Council of Churches. There is no idolatry of texts, but there is no disregard for what these texts provide, as those who drafted them have done so with the preoccupation of permanently improving the performance of the Council. Whenever we find that a certain text has become an obstacle to good performance and quality of achievement, the texts of the Council's regulations guide us to the way of amending it for improvement of the quality of our work.
Brainstorming, which has become an essential element in the organizational culture of the Council, and which is practiced among its various stakeholders, is the guarantor of the Council's vitality as well as the fullest performance of its role in its surroundings.