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Cooptation

The word cooptation has many definitions, but the most common refers to the election of representatives who, as a result, are absorbed or assimilated by the electing governing body. Cooptation is also used in management and organization studies to describe the influential processes that often lead to outcomes that are neither planned nor desired. Cooptation processes can, moreover, divert an organization’s goals in ways that are objectionable to the organization’s principals. The principals may be the organization’s owners, founders, and/or community representatives who generally control the overall policy making. Typically, other organizational actors, for example, managers, employees, or various external partners, undertake the cooptation process, which may be either formal or informal. The American sociologist Philip Selznick is recognized as the primary developer of cooptation theory. This entry explains its foundation, development, and relevance today.

Fundamentals

Organizations are tools their founders use to achieve certain founder-defined goals. The root word for “organization” is the Greek word for tool: organon. However, for many and varied reasons, frequently organizations do not achieve their goals. Their goals may be unrealistic, their competition too stiff, and/or their resources inadequate. Another reason, and the one of particular interest here, is the influence that causes the organization to divert its focus from its original goals. Such diversions may be the result of the process of cooptation when some stakeholder, either external or internal, exerts influence over organizational policy.

There are two main types of cooptation: formal and informal. Formal cooptation may result when external stakeholders, for example, nongovernmental organizations or local communities, have representatives on an organization’s board of directors and can thus influence its policies. Informal cooptation may result when internal stakeholders, for example, professional groups, agents, or managers, sidetrack and/or reformulate organizational goals.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Case

The theoretical concept of cooptation in management studies builds primarily on Philip Selznick’s classic 1949 book, TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization. The U.S. Congress founded the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933 as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The purpose of the TVA was to address economic, social, and environmental development problems in the catchment area of the Tennessee River. The TVA was a new kind of legislative body based on democratic planning and grassroots participation by poor and underdeveloped regions that suffered from economic underdevelopment, soil erosion, deforestation, and malaria infection.

However, as Selznick described, the grassroots movement had only a modest influence on the TVA. Grassroots participation was instead used as a protective ideology for activities that were more influenced by the nearby land grant colleges and by the U.S. Farm Service Bureau. The former was given responsibility by the TVA for the project’s research and education; the latter employed its extensive network of agricultural agents to reach the farmers affected by the TVA programs. Because the interests of these external stakeholders were aligned with the vested and wealthy community interests, directly and indirectly, they exerted a significant influence on policy- and decision making in the TVA.

The cooptation in the TVA was both formal and informal. It was formal in that the external stakeholders held seats on the governing TVA body. It was informal in that some TVA officials had connections with these stakeholders. For example, one TVA executive was a former president of the University of Tennessee. Moreover, some professional groups, in particular the TVA’s own department of agricultural experts took an active role in the cooptation with their opposition to the public ownership of land that was a fundamental mission of the TVA. By this opposition, they showed their support for the wealthy farmers of the region.

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