Modernization and Change in Social Housing: The Case for an Organizational Perspective
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00271 |
| Author | Barbara Reid,David Mullins,Richard M. Walker |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
MODERNIZATION AND CHANGE IN SOCIAL
HOUSING: THE CASE FOR AN
ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
DAVID MULLINS, BARBARA REID AND RICHARD M. WALKER
It is argued that past approaches to the research of housing policy and housing
organizations are now inadequate and unable to provide a clear explanation of
modernization and change. The modernization of social housing is associated with
changing core organizational competencies and the movement towards a variety of
partnership approaches. In response we develop a tripartite theoretical framework
based around new institutional economics, strategic management and institutional
theory. An exploratory review of the evidence at a sectoral level (examining social
housing as a field, regulation and the profession) and the organizational level
(focusing upon changing organization behaviour) is used to illustrate the legitimacy
of this approach. In conclusion a research agenda is outlined.
INTRODUCTION
There has been much debate within different professional and academic
fields about the nature of the institutional and organizational changes asso-
ciated with the modernization project, both prior to and since the election
of the first Blair government in 1997 (Blair 1997; Giddens 1998). Earlier
commentators have focused on the ‘rolling back of the state’ associated with
Conservative government policies, and which is seen to have constituted
an irreversible diminution of the role of public sector institutions overall
(Hood 1991; Rhodes 1994). Others set out how the ‘mixed economy of pro-
vision’ presented an opportunity for the public sector to extend local and
sectoral hegemony through regulatory regimes and other forms of struc-
tured influence (Greer and Hoggett 1999). Other work has looked at
changes in governance and social co-ordination at local, sectoral and cor-
porate levels, and the relationship between policy co-ordination and differ-
ent modes of governance (Thompson et al. 1993).
Modernization is a contested theoretical term. The idea of modernization
which underpins the present government’s ‘modernization agenda’ focuses
on the need to foster an ongoing appetite at institutional and organizational
level to modernize in order to maintain or create competitive or collabor-
ative advantage, or justify maintained public investment levels. In this con-
text, modernization implies progress towards improved efficiency. It is not
David Mullins is at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham. Barbara
Reid is at the Faculty of the Built Environment, South Bank University. Richard M. Walker is at the
Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University.
Public Administration Vol. 79 No. 3, 2001 (599–623)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
600 DAVID MULLINS, BARBARA REID AND RICHARD M. WALKER
the intention in this paper to explore the deeper theoretical roots of the
modernization concept. Rather the aim of this paper is to highlight the
deficiencies in research associated with the traditional public administration
approaches of central-local relations and principal:agent theory within the
context of social housing. We argue the need for a theoretical refocusing
around a tripartite framework which draws upon new institutional eco-
nomics, strategic management and institutional theory. An important facet
of our approach is that it takes into account the modernization of social
housing and the uncertainties and contingencies which define organiza-
tions’behaviour and structure their interactions with their operational
environment at the organizational, local and sectoral levels. The paper does
not aim to come to definitive conclusions but to offer an exploration of this
theoretical framework within the social housing sector in England and
Wales.
In developing this approach to the research of housing we initially pro-
vide further evidence of our understanding of the term modernization. In
the second section we provide a critique of past research traditions and
illustrate their limitations. The next section presents our tripartite theoreti-
cal perspective, firstly exploring governance theory from a new institutional
economics perspective. Here we review the way in which organizational
activity is structured at different levels by the relationships between differ-
ent actors and agencies involved. Second, social housing’s‘strategic role’
is discussed to further demonstrate the changing management context,
meanings and practices. Central in these two perspectives is the role of
inter-organizational relationships. Third we examine the ways in which
institutional theory can explain organizational behaviour at the sectoral
level. After this theoretical discussion the section that follows explores these
ideas in three arenas to illustrate our case. At the sectoral level we initially
examine the role and operation of regulation and regulatory mechanisms to
illustrate how regulation has been developed and to indicate the increasing
complexity of social housing provision. Second, the limited success of the
‘professional project’in social housing is considered to again portray at the
sectoral level how the profession has struggled to cope with the new ‘mod-
ern’agenda. Third, the focus shifts to changing patterns in the wider behav-
iour exhibited at the organizational level. Having reviewed these areas, the
paper concludes by suggesting how this approach to analysing organiza-
tional change might offer new perspectives on modernization and change
in social housing and it offers a research agenda.
MODERNIZATION, POLICY CHANGE AND PAST RESEARCH IN
SOCIAL HOUSING
The modernization of social housing
The modernization of social housing has been driven by a number of factors
and is expressed through three facets. First has been the redefinition of
social housing organizations’‘core’roles and responsibilities, and their
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
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