Institutional and Organizational Dynamics in Community-Based Drug Abuse Treatment

Abstract

Organizations located in complex institutional environments must deal with conflicting demands from their constituencies. One organizational response, a variant of the symbolic adaptation originally described by Meyer and Rowan, is a chameleon strategy. Presentations of services are varied from situation to situation to meet the demands of different audiences, while primary work activity remains constant. With the decoupling of presentations from technical activity, ideology is used to establish and maintain institutional sponsorship, leaving consumer-oriented services unconstrained. Community drug abuse treatment agencies use the chameleon strategy to achieve isomorphism in conflicting environments. Clients must be attracted, and many want something other than drug treatment; yet institutional sponsors want drug treatment to be provided. Though appearing to specialize in drug abuse services, agencies are actually generalists, offering a wide range of high demand services to the general public.