An Empirical Exploration of a Framework of Organizational Viability: Maintaining Block Organizations

Abstract

Block and neighborhood organizations can play an essential role in the preservation and revitalization of urban communities, but they are vulnerable to rapid decline or failure. In examining active and inactive block organizations, this article presents an open-systems framework of variables related to the maintenance of such groups. The framework, which consists offive general systems-level variables-each made up of lower-level variables open to empirical evaluation-was applied to a longitudinal study of 17 block organizations. To gather data, researchers distributed questionnaires and held comprehensive interviews with organization leaders. The results indicate that one can successfully use the framework to differentiate between active, functioning block organizations and inactive ones. Specifically, the data indicate that the active block organizations acquired more extensive resources, used more effective maintenance and production subsystems, and were more successful in attaining external goals than were the inactive groups. The authors discuss the conceptual and empirical aspects of this study and make recommendations for future research.