Philip Selznick

"[Even if established procedures exist for replacing leaders,] they are relatively harmless to the entrenched leaders (because functionless) so long as the ranks fear the consequences of using them"

"Cooptation is the process of absorbing new elements into the leadership or policy- determining structure of an organization as a means of averting threats to its stability or existence."

"Trade unions, governments, business corporations, political parties, and the like are formal structures in the sense that they represent rationally ordered instruments for the achievement of stated goals."

"Whereas some consequences of our actions occur as planned, others are unanticipated; social actions are not context-free but are constrained, and their outcomes are shaped by the setting in which they occur. Especially significant are the constraints on action that arise from commitments enforced by institutionalization. Because organizations are social systems, goals and procedures tend to achieve an established, value impregnated status. We say that they become institutionalized."

"The institutional leader, then, is primarily an expert in the promotion and protection of values."

"Organisations are technical instruments; designed as means to definite goals... they are expendable. Institutions... may be partly engineered, but they have also a “natural” dimension. They are the products of interaction and adaptation; they become the receptacles of group idealism; they are less readily expendable."