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© ;
5 Rockefeller THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
. University /Z 1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10021
eb a November 29, 1979

TOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Dr. Philip H. Birnbaum
Indiana University

School of Business
Bloomington/Indianapolis
10th and Fee Lane
Bloomington, Indiana 47405

Dear Dr. Birnbaum:

Thank you for your reprint on status con/discordance.
(Quite possibly I was a denizen of one cell of your study
as a member of a number of interdisciplinary efforts at
Stanford until 1978).

I suspect that the prenatal periods of projects --
which you cannot readily capture -- mold their organization.
In a multidepartmental academic environment, there can
hardly be too much status fo an entrepreneur to succeed
in bringing together the relevant experts in the face of
structural barriers. Once the project has been launched,
the entrepreneur may well tire of routine stewardship or
turn to other enterprises. Then the project will be passed
on to more routine (nominal) administration.

Status discordance may however be merely a formal con-
-cealment, in the nominal T/O of the actual frame of initia-
tive and decision making.

The report enclosed also makes some remarks about in-
stitutional design, and I would welcome your comments, as
well as particular references to pertinent literature on
the motives and consequences of departmental/disciplinary
organizational structures.

Yours sincer ,

shua Lederberg

Encl. ARP
RU bch