Tennessee Valley Authority: the establishment of a system for the development of agency objectives, 1981

Shelton, Jeffery Randolph

1980-1989

The primary intent of this study was to establish an alternative approach for developing objectives within the office of Community Development (OCD) at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The office was suffering from program duplication and a lack of communication, participation, and motivation, all of which related to weak organizational objectives. The writer focused on the Program Planning Team that was set up by OCD to plan activities for the organizational units. Special attention was given to the team's actions in its attempt to reconstruct objectives through the identification of unit activities. The team's approach was not a total failure since it was able to establish lines of communication and participation. However, the team was unable to complete all its tasks. The writer has used the MBO process as a frame of reference for this study. The problems prevalent in OCD and the approach it took to develop objectives were analyzed in the context of the steps of the MBO process. MBO aids in solving many objective-related problems that exists in agencies. This process has been utilized extensively in the private sector and has been receiving increased recognition in the public sector. The materials used in this study were derived from two data gathering methods. The first was participant observation in which the writer was a part of the Program Planning Team at OCD, and thereby gathered on-site information. The second was an exploratory inquiry which provided the theoretical framework necessary to address the topics of objective-setting and MBO.

text

application/pdf

1981-07-01

thesis

Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Atlanta University

Department of Public Administration

Irvin Brown

Clark Atlanta University

Georgia--Atlanta

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1981_shelton_jeffery_r