ectiveness of the organization. Decentralization is clearly the popular trend in structure, at least in part because of today's emphasis on responsiveness to clients and participatory management. Decentralized structures, by definition, permit greater autonomy in the bureau's subdivisions and make broad participation in some decisions possible. Decentralization can also increase the visibility of lower-level departments and emphasize their importance. Greater flexibility in dealing with external demands and faster decisions are also associated with decentralization. (Duffee 62)
             Decentralization may, however, make it harder to determine program accountability and to establish consistent policies throughout the organization because more officials are active decision makers. The cooperative use of scarce resources may generate conflict in decentralized organizations since there is less central assignment of resources. Planning new projects may also take a back seat to developing existing ones. In an extremely decentralized structure, t
             ...