Researchers have speculated for some time that organizations are strongly influenced by ideological and social forces present at the forntative period of their history. This study shows that two types of organizational structure-centralized and pluralistic-found in 48 states' public assistance organizations can be partly accounted for by the administrative ideology that was dominant at the formative stage. In addition, the effects of pluralistic and centralized structure tend to have long-lasting effects on some of the internal components of public assistance organizations.
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