CASE STUDY
“Preventing Pollution in Massachusetts: The Blackstone Project” (Kennedy School Case: C16-93-1197.0)
You are a Special Assistant to Ms. Patricia Deese Stanton, Assistant Commissioner for Waste Prevention, who has been given responsibility for carrying out The Blackstone Project, a pilot project within the newly reorganized Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that would totally change the way in which facility inspections are conducted, in an effort to reduce pollution of all kinds at the source. Ms. Stanton has asked you to analyze the situation she is dealing with, from the perspective of internal organizational structure and the structural relationship of the organization with external actors and organizations. Specifically, she has requested a 2-page, single-spaced, 12-point-font, 1-inch-margin memorandum that would address the following questions:
What is a major organization/management problem facing Ms. Stanton? Why is it important to address this problem?
What are the advantages to DEP of the pre-existing approach to inspections, in which inspectors specialized in a certain category of pollution sources (e.g. air, water and hazardous wastes)? Who is most comfortable with this approach and why?
What are the advantages of integrating inspections? Who would be most open to this approach and why?
What factors are most influential in leading to the proposed change to an integrated inspection system? Factors in the organizational environment of DEP, including the policy environment of facilities that are inspected?
Similarly, how might technological factors make it difficult to achieve integrated inspections? Technological factors include two components: types of task interdependence (pooled, sequential, reciprocal, and collective) and corresponding coordination structures (simple hierarchy, assembly lines, wheels, and networks).
What specific recommendations do you have, for how to motivate key players to implement the Blackstone Project?
Also describe an action plan to implement these recommendations.
