In the 1950s, the U.S. Forest Service was renowned for its excellence in public service and as an exemplar of effective bureaucracy and public administration. Its Rangers were responsible for the administration of public lands across the country, and performed a wide range of tasks such as fire-fighting, managing commercial development, providing recreation, and most of all protecting the natural environment. It was incredibly difficult and demanding work that required Rangers to work on their own, physically and cognitively distant from colleagues and superiors alike. It would have been easy for the Forest Service to lose control over its widely dispersed and independent Rangers, but it did not. In fact, it remained a strongly unified organization.

How was this possible? That was the question that Herbert Kaufman asked as he undertook an ethnographic study of five Rangers scattered in different parts of the country, published in 1960 as The Forest Ranger: A Study of Administrative Behavior. The body of Kaufman’s book had two parts. The first was called “Tendencies Toward Fragmentation” where he discussed the many opportunities Rangers could have used to dissociate from the Service and act independently to satisfy one’s own interests. These included extraordinary internal communications challenges, continuous contact with local interests such as commercial firms wanting to exploit natural resources, and the personal decisions and preferences of the Rangers themselves. In particular, there was a possibility of “going native” such that the Rangers would care more about the needs or desires of those in the local communities over the needs or desires of the Service.

This was followed by Part Two, “Techniques of Integration,” explaining the many different tactics used by the Forest Service to keep the Rangers in line. The techniques involved detecting deviations of Ranger decisions or actions from prescribed norms published in the official “manual” and various directives and regulations and exercising corrective actions. Rangers were regularly rotated to other districts or regions to prevent them from ever “going native.” There were also requirements for detailed journals and other documentation that served as normative control mechanisms over the Rangers, making deviations even harder to pull off. The result was an organization that stayed strongly integrated.

The book is a classic in public administration and is incredibly relevant today. Public sector organizations have grown in complexity as the demand for public services has increased, but the methods of control and standardization are similar to those found in Kaufman’s study. The aims are also the same, unity of effort, equal treatment, and equitable access to government services no matter where one is located.  

Read with us:

Kaufman, H. (1960). The forest ranger: A study in administrative behavior. RFF Press.

To Learn More:

Han, B. C. (2015). The transparency society. Stanford University Press.

Karunakaran, A., Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2022). Crowd-based accountability: Examining how social media commentary reconfigures organizational accountability. Organization Science, 33(1), 170-193.

Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public service. Russell Sage Foundation.

McDonnell, E. M. (2021). Patchwork leviathan: Pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness in developing states. Princeton University Press.

Other Talking About Organizations Podcast episodes referenced:

Episode 38. Socialization and Occupational Communities — Van Maanen

Episode 63. Remote Operations — the Hudson’s Bay Company

Episode 75. Institutionalization — Philip Selznick

Episode 85. Carnegie-Mellon Series #6 — Organizations (by March & Simon)

Title Image Credit: U.S. Forest Service