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ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS IN 

A CHANGE-ORIENTED ORGANIZATION: 


A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL IRRIGATION 

ADMINISTRATION OF THE PHILIPPINES 


KHIN MAUNG KYI 

in collaboration with 

C.M. WIJAYARATNA 

CHARLES NIJMAN 

and 

TILAK KURUPPUARACHCHI 

-;. 
IlMl ~ 631.7.8 

I GOOO 
KYI 

I 



r I f\t\ I
TABLE OF CONTENTS 63 i, 1 ~ 
.>\ (; 0 

List of Figures .................................................... v 


List of Tables .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. vi 


List of Exhibit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 


Acknowledgement ................................................. x 


Executive Summary ............................................... xii 


Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................... , 1 


Chapter 2 The Conceptual Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 6 


Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 6 

Three Causal Models ............................... 9 


Chapter 3 Research Design ....................................... 15 


Operationalization of Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 15 

Pre-testing and Improvement of Instruments ............. 21 


Ch,lpter 4 Field Research and Instrumentation ........................ 30 


Sam pIe Design .......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30 

Field Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 33 

Construction of Relevant Scales and Indices. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35 

Organization of Indices into Concepts of Variables. . . . . . . .. 36 

Convergence Methods .............................. 41 

Reliability and Validity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 42 




Chapter 5 Findings: Micro Organizational Analysis .................... 48 


Indices of Organizational Structure and Processes ......... 49 


Consistency between Factor Patterns and Organizational 


Organizational Design Indices Among Different Work 


Cross Tabulation by Location and Type of Work 


Testing the Causal Model of the Organizational Design 


Comparison with Benchmark ........................ , 52 


Design Indices ............................... 55 


Units ...................................... 58 


Units ................................. 60 

Cross Tabulations of Factor Results ............... 65 


Patterns of Interrelationships Among Various Variables. . . .. 69 

Performance and Prior Variables ...................... 79 


Indices .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82 

Summary of the Chapter ............................ 89 


Chapter 6 Findings: Job Design, Individual Motivation and Satisfaction. . .. 92 


Comparison With Other Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 92 

Work Culture in NIA as depicted by Basic Statistics. . . . . . .. 94 

Job Design Indices and Work Unit Characteristics ......... 102 


Location of Units ............................. 102 

Organization Type ............................ 105 

Ranks of Respondents ......................... 109 

Nature of Job ................................ 112 

The Summary and Questions Raised .............. 116 


Patterns of Relationships among Job Design Indices ........ 118 

Causal Models of Job Design Indices: Unit-wise Regression 


Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 

Questions Raised and Implications ..................... 126 


11 



Chapter 7 Organizational and Environmental Variables and Micro Unit 

Performance ...................................... 128 


Administrative Development ......................... 129 

The Background and Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 

Introduction of Performance Oriented Approach .......... 131 

Statement of the Problem ........................... 134 

Characteristics of Performance Study Units .............. 136 

Structure Variables and Performance ................... 140 

Organizational Variables and Performance ............... 142 

Inter Unit Relationship and Organizational Performance .... 147 

Problems and Dysfunctions of Performance Measures ...... 149 

Conclusion ....................................... 152 


Chapter 8 Macro Perspective of Organizational Process ................. 153 


Development of the National Irrigation Administration in the 

Philippines .................................. 153 


Evolution of New Financial Responsibility ............... 155 

Domain of Business and Strategic Planning .............. 157 

Emerging Domains of Business ....................... 158 

Strategic Corporate Planning in NIA ................... 160 

Corporate Performance .............................. 162 

Viability, Accountability and Strategic Domain ............ 172 


Chapter 9 Emerging Patterns and Conclusions ........................ 177 


Accountability and Strategic Domain ................... 177 

Functions and Dysfunctions of Performance Measures ...... 181 

Work Culture and Organizational Dynamics ............. 186 

Preferences, Motivation and Alienation ................. 186 

Authority and Participation in the Work Culture of NIA .... 188 

System Management and Total Approach ............... 194 


References .................................................. .... 200 


Appendix A 	 Field Research Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. A-I 

Appendix B 	 The Test of Consistency between Organizational Design 

Indices and Factor Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. B-1 


Appendix C 	 Basic Statistic of Organizational Design Indices and 

Question Items, National Irrigation Administration, 

Philippines .................................... C-1 


III 



Appendix D Financial Performance Indicators .................. . D-1 


Appendix E Operating Ratios for the Years 1980-1989 ............. . E-1 


. .
Appendix F Q uestlonnarres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... . F-1 


iv 




List of Figures 

Figure 2.1 A macro model of management behaviour and performance 

in irrigation organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 9 


Figure 2.2 Micro management model 

Figure 5.2 Diagrammatic presentations of zero-order correlations 


................................ 12 


Figure 2.3 Individual level job design model .......................... , 13 


Figure 5.1 Causal order of variable groupings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 71 


among selected indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 83 


Figure 9.1 Value chain of National Irrigation Systems in the Philippines ...... 197 


v 



List of Tables 

Table 3.1 Indices in organizational unit design· ....................... , 16 

Table 3.2 Job design indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19 

Table 3.3 Characteristics of pretest sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24 

Table 4.1 N umber of work units classified by 
different types of work units and by location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 32 

Table 4.2 Characteristics of sample selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 33 

Table 4.3 Number of questionnaires collected in each category 
national irrigation administration, the philippines .............. 35 

Table 4.4 Basic variables and component indices 
in organization design indices ............................. 38 

Table 4.5 Basic variables and component indices 
in job design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 40 

Table 4.6 Reliability test of organizational design indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44 

Table 4.7 Reliability index for job design indices .............. . . . . . . . .. 46 

Table 5.1 Means and standard deviations of organizational design indices in 
National Irrigation Administration, Philippines. ................ 50 

Table 5.2 Comparative results of organization design indices in 
the National Irrigation Administration and previous 
OAl studies ........................................... 53 

Table 5.3 Comparison between factors identified 
and original organizational design indices .................... 56 

Table 5.4 Organizational design characteristics by location of offices . . . . . . .. 60 

Table 5.5 Organizational characteristics by type of work unit ............. 62 

Table 5.6 Organizational factors by location of offices and units ........... 66 

Table 5.7 Organizational factors by type of work units .................. 68 

vi 



Table 5.8 Inter correlations between indices in organizational 

design categories by variable groupings .......... . . . . . . . . . . .. 73 


Table 5.9 Number of inter correlations observed in both 

inside and outside each groupings .......................... 78 


Table 5.10 Zero order inter correlations between 

perceived unit performance and independent variables .......... 81 


Table 5.11 Analysis of R2 effects in the hierarchical multiple 

regression of organizational design indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 84 


Table 5.12 B coefficient of hierarchical multiple regression 

on selected organizational indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 86 


Table 6.1 Comparison of results of job design indices 

with those of previous researches .......................... , 93 


Table 6.2 Basic statistics of job design indices and question items 

National Irrigation Administration, the Philippines ............. 95 


Table 6.3 Job design indices as scores cross classified 

by region and central office ............................... 103 


Table 6.4 Job design indices cross classified by type of organization ­
National Irrigation Administration, the Philippines ............. 106 


Table 6.5 Job design indices by rank of the jobs ­
National Irrigation Administration, the Philippines ............. 110 


Table 6.6 Job design indices by nature of job ­
National Irrigation Administration, the Philippines ............. 113 


Table 6.7 Inter correlation between job design indices ................... 119 


Table 6.8 Regression analysis of job design indices of work units .......... 124 


Table 6.9 Regression analysis of job design indices and work motivation 

in work units .......................................... 125 


Table 7.1 Characteristics of the sample irrigation systems 

as at end 1989 ..................................... 137 


vii 



Table 7.2 Relative performance of three regions with regard to 

financial viability index for the last five years .................. 139 


Table 8.2 A comparison between incremental area (1980-89) and the 


Table 8.4 A comparison of operating expenses and income for the years 


Table 8.6 A comparison of financial performance indicators for the 


Table 7.3 Results of step-wise regression of organizational and 

job design indices on viability index ......................... 144 


Table 7.5 Index of intensity of interaction with external units by 

region (Shown as percent of total interunit interactions) .......... 148 


Table 7.6 Index of intensity of interaction with external units 

by region and by system type (Shown as per cent of total interunit 

interactions) ........................................... 148 


Table 8.1 Targets in various versions of the corporate plan ............... 162 


new area constructed under the plan ........................ 163 


Table 8.3 The total organizational performance ratios ................... 164 


1985-1989 (in thousand pesos) .............................. 167 


Table 8.5 A comparison of operating ratios for the years 1980-1989 ......... 169 


years (1985-1989) ........................................ 170 


viii 



List of Exhibit 


Exhibit 8.1 Structure of Viability .................................... 175 


ix 




ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 


A survey research of this size would not have corne into fruition without 
collaboration and support of many participants and contributions. First/ the writer 
would like to thank Dr. Roberto Lenton/ Director General/ who all along has focussed 
his vision on innovation in irrigation management and has given his blessings to all 
those who wish to try new ideas. The author also deeply appreciates the unfailing 
support and encouragement Mr. Charles Abernethy/ the then Director of Programs/ has 
steadfastly provided. Without his foresight and encouragement/ the study may not even 
have taken shape. The author also will like to tender his sincere and deep appreciation 
of cooperation and blessing extended by NIA Administrator/ Mr. Jose B. del Rosario Jr. 
and Assistant Administrator/ Dr. Jose A. Galvez. The author also records his regards 
and gratitude to all those NIA officials and also officials from the Sri Lanka Irrigation 
Department and the Mahaweli Economic Agency who participated and assisted in the 
conduct of this research. Without their contribution this worthy cause will not have 
been accomplished. 

The author also records with appreciation important contributions made by three 
collaborating colleagues: Dr. C.M. Wijayaratna/ Head of IIMI Field Office in the 
Philippines/ for his wholehearted support for the project and his participation as a 
leading member of the team in conducting the field survey; Charles Nijman for his 
participation throughout/ from the field testing to the actual conduct of field research; 
Tilak Kuruppuarachchi for assistance rendered in processing the data. Without their 
respective contributions/ the project would not have been so well completed in such a 
short period of time. The author is indebted to these collaborators for both intellectual 
inputs contributed and time and energy devoted. However/ the author would like to 
express that/ as principal researcher who conceptualized and actualized the project/ he 
alone is responsible for any omission/ commission and inadequacies that may be found 
in this work. 

The author also thanks staff members of IIMI's Field Office in the Philippines who 
participated with enthusiasm and dedication in the field research. 

The important contributions of Mr. P. Weerakkody of the Mahaweli Economic 
Agency and Mr. D.W.R.M. Weerakoon of the Irrigation Department of Sri Lanka and Mr. 
H. Karunasena of IIMI Headquarters in respect of field exercise are gratefully 
acknowledged. 

The author also tenders his thanks to colleagues at IIMI Headquarters/ particularly 
to Dr. Fred Valera and Dr. Senen Miranda of IIMI, and many others who gave 
encouragement and support or offered a helping hand in the process of this work. 

x 



Last but not least, my wholehearted regards and appreciation should be reserved 
for my very able secretary, Mala Ranawake, whose unfailing and dedicated work to this 
project made this whole work come to a fruitful conclusion. 

Khin Maung Kyi 
September 8{ 1992 

Xl 



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This report presents the findings of a comprehensive organizational survey 
conducted in the National Irrigation Administration of the Philippines in September­
October 1990. The survey was modelled after Organizational Assessment Methods 
developed by the Organizational Assessment Centre of the University of Pennsylvania, 
U.s.A. A systematic pre-test was conducted and the model was modified to suit the 
local conditions. It was intended that at least three irrigation organizations in the 
Philippines and Sri Lanka will be studied and a final comparative synthesis will be 
written on the basis of three case studies among which the study of National Irrigation 
Administration of the Philippines will form a major work. 

The Philippine study was conducted in three irrigation regions representing the 
strongly performing, medium performing and weakly performing regions. All national 
systems, provincial irrigation offices, administrative divisions in each of these regions 
were included in the survey. From each work unit, that is, system, PIO, or division, a 
total of five officials including the supervisor (the manager, engineer or head) of the unit 
were requested to answer the structured questionnaires. In addition, basic economic and 
financial da ta of all the field opera ting units were also com piled. In the Central Office, 
12 senior managers and officials from 22 sampled divisions participated in the same 
exercise. Altogether 98 work units consisting of 53 systems and PIOs and 45 
administrative divisions were covered in this survey. The total of 600 questionnaires 
were completed. In addition, 26 in-depth interviews of responsible officials were 
conducted. The survey also in the course of its field activities collected from various 
NIA's office's official circulars, memorandums and reports relevant to its purpose. 
Various statistical models were used and appropriate tests conducted on these models. 
This report is the culmination of this comprehensive exercise in organizational analysis 
and assessmen t. 

The purpose of this research is to analyze the internal working of management 
systems of NIA with reference to its larger environmental context and to identify the 
strengths, weaknesses, and distinguishing factors of the existing processes so that 
interventions for possible improvements could be attempted. The report approaches this 
problem from three different levels - a macro level case study which looks at the overall 
problem of management from the strategic perspective, a micro study of organizational 
units and their patterns of management and resulting performance, and an individual 
job incumbent level study which explores various job characteristics of NIA personnel 
and their effects on work motivation, job satisfaction and performance. 

XII 



The following is the summary of salient points this report has emphasized in the 
presentation of findings. 

1. 	 The analysis of NIA's various plans and its actual performance in the last ten 
years indicates that NIA has made great strides in improving its financial 
performance and creating dynamic work atmosphere imbued with drive for 
financial success. However, the avowed policy of financial viability is not 
achieved. The analysis of financial data for the last ten years strongly suggests 
that achieving the financial self-sufficiency or paying for its own current operating 
expenditure as an economic enterprise is still far short of expectations. 

The report identifies the following as the main reasons for the current state of 
financial impasse: 

a) 	 The financial accountability for NIA has never been clearly defined: unit, 
level, and limits of accountability are never expressedly defined or have 
been undefined. Because of cross-subsidizing between different business 
functions or units, responsibility could not be pinpointed, and the 
inefficiency from one function or unit can pass on to others. 

b) 	 The strategic domains of business or strategic business units are undefined 
or never clearly thought through. Since state corporation has a mixed bag 
of social and economic objectives, without distinguishing between 
functions or domains which can be operated on economic or market basis 
and the others that exist to serve the social purpose, a meaningful 
economic accountability cannot be established. While social functions or 
social objectives call for subsidies, the economically viable function should 
operate on market or fee-for-service principle. In addition, to plan and 
operate on a more rational or synergetic basis, the clear definition of 
strategic business units or strategic domains will be needed. 

c) 	 Setting financial accountability for the organization as a whole can be done 
only by a higher level government authority. The Government has no 
clearly or consistently laid down financial objectives, responsibility and 
structures for NIA. The financial restructuring or any financial 
reorganization will have to be done with the blessings or the expressed 
will of the Government. 

The report also suggests various financial arrangements that may be used in 
restructuring the financial accountability of NIA. 

xiii 



2. 	 The operation of financial accountability demands, as a pre requisite, success 
indicators, measurable, achievable and relevant for effective control and 
evaluation. The current use of financial viability as the main success indicator has 
injected a great deal of dynamism to the operations of NIA. Every office or 
financially accountable work unit is highly charged with desires and drives for 
better financial performance. That in itself is a great achievement as far as it 
applies to an irrigation organization in a developing country. However, certain 
dysfunctions arising from the exclusive use of one financial indicator have become 
visible recently: the neglect of maintenance, tendency to pad the records for better 
showing, the conflict with other preferable objectives such as equitable water 
delivery are recognized as common complaints. However, this paper argues that 
the viability index is by far one of the best all round indicators available for 
measuring the effectiveness of system performance. It encompasses the efficacy 
of water delivery as well as the cost saving behaviour as its dual components in 
a drive towards improving the financial ratio. It is measurable, attainable, and 
relevant to the purpose of the management, and all conditions of a good indicator 
are satisfied. Certain quarters, however, have become very critical of this ratio 
and suggested a set of indices to replace this very powerful index. This report 
thoroughly discusses the pros and cons of setting alternative types of indicators 
and argues that it would be a mistake to do away with or down-grade this 
indicator. The report points out the weaknesses of multiple indices, each of 
which could be pulling in different directions, and highlights the arbitrary nature 
of the composite criterion and its difficulty of functioning as an effective 
motivator. The report contends that the main reason for the short term gain the 
management pursues to the detriment of the maintenance is due to the exclusion 
of capital effectiveness measures in the currently used financial index. The report 
reasons that such short term behaviour is discouraged when the business firms 
take into account the productivity of capital invest in its use of the criterion of 
success. The report calls for the inclusion of capital productivity at a sustainable 
level for a longer term period, in formulating an overall financial productivity 
index. 

3. 	 The job design analysis and the study of work culture included in the survey 
draw the attention of management to the several areas of importance. The report 
identified good supervisory relationship and opportunities for self development 
as two most cherished preferences of employees in NIA. The report further noted 
that unlike in the Western countries whose cultures rate the self-actualization as 
the most important in the hierarchy of values, the Filipino workers place social 
esteem and social reverence in the top position of value hierarchy. As a result, 
amicable work relationship, especially the respect and regard from the supervisor, 
occupies the most important position in the value scheme of the work force. The 
report also presents important trends emerging from the study of work 
motivation and job satisfaction in NIA which calls for serious attention from the 
management. The report finds that though the general motivational level is 

XIV 



satisfactory, there exists the disquiet and dissatisfaction with regard to 
employment potentials and compensation. In addition, the level of work 
motivation and job satisfaction is positively related to the rank order of 
employees, meaning "the lower the rank the lower the work motivation and job 
satisfaction." The evidence is so strong that the existence of work alienation 
among lower level employees of NIA will have to be recognized, an untenable 
position for an organization so devoted to the introduction of good management 
principles. It is also discovered that the degree of job accountability, the job 
authority, and the job responsibility granted was positively related again to the 
rank of employees, suggesting that alienation comes from the lack of autonomy 
in the exercise of their duties in the lower ranks of NIA. More disturbingly a 
similar trend is observed among professional engineers and technicians, the 
bulwark of NIA activities. All this suggests a re-design or at least re-thinking of 
job responsibility for the bulk of the staff members of NIA. 

4. 	 The report also finds that the more directed and rationalized management 
approach is prevalent and effective for performance of work units. The report 
notes the predominance and functionality of this type of management; yet it also 
views that more accountability, responsibility, and commitment on the part of 
rank and file is needed for more effective and cohesive management for the next 
phase of development. The evidences emerging suggest that a fine tuning of 
balance between authority and participation is needed. The report advocates not 
the set or standardized programmed intervention but the generation of "process" 
of change in work units that will adjust itself to the level of each system's 
requirements. Introducing more effective feedback between managers and 
employees, improving communication network and skills, re-designing the jobs 
to suit the requirements of shared responsibility, the practice of an overall 
management approach on the part of managers are suggested as possible areas 
of interventions. The guideline for "process intervention" is also suggested in the 
report. 

5. 	 The report suggests that the structural improvements, job re-design and 
organizational fine tuning, and setting up indicators for sustainable futures should 
only form parts of an overall approach the management should adopt in its 
intervention exercise. The report argues that ultimately the management must 
synthesize all these measures to achieve the overall objectives of the 
organizational unit. A powerful approach in this regard is the Value Chain 
Analysis which looks at the total picture, identifies the most important 
contributing valued functions, and help re-orient the various activities to achieve 
the desired objectives. The value chain for an irrigation system is suggested as 
an example. It illustrates how radically different thinking could corne about by 
this analysis, thus promoting a more integrated management ranging from the 
resource gathering to creating valued products for the clients, the farmers. 

xv 



The report argues that the traditional professional stand that the irrigation 
management should restrict itself to its expertise and concentrate on distributing 
water "efficiently" is absurd. The ultimate purpose of the irrigation organization 
is to help create the value for the users or clients. Only when the values of the 
client's product is increased, the valued product of the irrigation or the value of 
water is fully realized. With this approach, NIA or any irrigation agency should 
be encouraged to assist the clients in their efforts to use water more effectively or 
to farm more profitably. In business organizationsl providing after sales service, 
technical assistance or co-financing facilities forms an integral part of value­
creating process. 

6. 	 The report identifies a number of underlying organizational strengths and 
weaknesses. As the objective of the study is more for exploration, investigation 
and experimentation than for finding specific solutions, only pathological causes 
are highlighted. Solutions will be devised by the organization itself. It is 
presented that NIA is eminently qualified to initiate the "process" intervention we 
have suggested in this report. The help of IIMI's expert on training may be 
sought to initiate and exemplify the process oriented change or OD intervention 
in a few selected units as models. 

xvi 



CHAPTER 1 

INTRODUCfION 

This report is one of the products arising from a series of research projects IIMI 
has embarked upon to understand and help improve the organization and management 
of irrigation organizations. IIMI, founded in 1983, is an international organization 
devoted to the improvement of management in the existing irrigation systems. Since 
then, it has carried out many research activities, the fruit of which have contributed to 
the new innovation, re-organization and structuring that emerge in many irrigation 
organizations the world over. In order to understand this piece of research in its proper 
perspective, we shall need to trace, first, the trends in managemen t research in the 
irrigation organizations and the nature and background of this course of development. 
As far back as the beginning of the 1970s many donors, government organizations, and 
govemments themselves have realized that irrigation systems that had been constructed 
and completed since the early 1950s and 1960s rarely did achieve the targets or goals 
these systems had set out in the beginning. They also discovered that ten years or so 
after the initial construction, most irrigation systems not only failed to achieve its target 
but also deteriorated so badly that the costly renovation and reconstruction of these 
systems became a necessity for their continued operations. By the middle of the 1970s 
and the early 1980s it was already realized that it was not the quantum and quality of 
the physical structure that was the deterrent to the development of the irrigated 
agriculture to its full potentials but a fuller or more effective use of these existing 
resources that was hampering the further development of irrigated agriculture. With 
this realization, managerial and organizational aspects of the irrigation management, 
software aspects, was given attention to. 

One of the earlier areas of attention had been the interface between the irrigation 
system and the user. Irrigation systems which merely distribute water as a bureaucratic 
procedure or as a welfare dispenser is not going to be effective at all, and the capital that 
has been invested will never be fully recovered or the potential that could have been 
reaped will never be realized. As long as there is no inter-connection or effective 
interface between farmers and irrigation providers, the water distribution could be 
distorted, thus not meeting the needs and demands of the users. With that in mind, a 
series of organizational innovations interlinking or interfacing farmers and the irrigation 
providers are devised or suggested, the results of which are contributory to the 
upgrading or effectiveness of the water distribution systems. The understanding of the 
farmE~rs' problems on the part of the system manager also makes their system more 
responsive to the farmers' needs. There is no doubt that all these have a positive impact. 
But it was again realized that even if the farmers' organizations were very efficient or 
ready to receive water and operate on a contractual basis or even on a market basis, the 
main system and its managers on the other hand would probably not be ready to take 
the challenge of distributing water on demand or on market basis. They may be 
constrained by, besides physical factors, the rules and regulations, norms, procedures, 

1 



budget and system's accountability within which they were made to operate. In other 
words, even if their own efficiency is at the highest level farmers' organizations could 
not accomplish the efficient and equitable distribution of water, unless the main system 
itself is also ready to operate on the same basis as the users demands. The effects of 
interface will be constrained by the weaknesses of the main system management. 

It is found that main system management, both physical and organizational, is 
attended by many historical factors, such as the limitation of the construction design 
itself and also the organizational and bureaucratic procedures that have developed over 
the years. In other words, without concomitant improvement on the main system 
management, what the tail-end can contribute will be constrained by the limitations of 
the head-end. This idea was driven home by Robert Chamber in his path breaking 
study on the management of the canal water systems and others followed suit. With 
this realization, a new series of research activities followed and IIMI itself was 
responsible for a number of research activities in this regard. From the 1980s onwards 
attention also was equally given to the main system management. 

The early developments of research activities on the main system management, 
however, are centered around the improving, planning and organization of water 
management. In other words, the approach was 'how to optimize the use of water 
available,' or 'how to plan in more logical ways so that water available will be fully 
utilized.' The kind of approach taken, in other words, was based on optimization 
principle. This, itself, at that time was an innovation. The managers themselves began 
to think about different ways of utilizing water, different ways of making arrangements, 
and different delivery procedures and alternative devices such as rotation were 
considered. A substantial improvement on the main system water management is 
achieved through this effort. However, very soon its limitations were also recognized. 
One important realization is that whatever optimal solution that can be devised is 
bounded by the limitation of the physical structure itself. These may have been the 
results of a faulty design or a miscalculation in the early stage of the design. There is 
no doubt that, of a number of things which can go wrong later or which can become 
inappropriate at a later stage, a few could not possibly be unforeseen by the designer 
at the time of planning. Incongruencies between the actual need at a later stage and 
what a system can actually deliver by design are a common phenomena in irrigation 
management. The constraints of the original design and how these can be improved, the 
study of interaction between the limits of design and management, is the subject of 
study by the International Irrigation Management Institute for the past few years. 

It is interesting to note that this subject, considered as an important realization on 
the part of irrigation management specialists, has always been known to the manager 
of a factory. No design of a new factory, however automatic or however modern, can 
foresee all the needs, demands and problems of actually running a factory and, therefore, 
it has always been recognized that variations between what originally was designed and 
what is demanded at a later stage will always be there. In the business administration, 

2 



the very essence of management is how to operate, within these very constraints, to the 
fullest possible use of existing resources. In other words, how best one can perform 
under the most limiting conditions is a legitimate concern of a business manager. 
However, of course, the special significance of this subject must, in the case of irrigation 
management, not be overlooked also. Irrigation systems are very expensive and cannot 
very easily be changed or abandoned like in businesses where an outmoded factory can 
easily be modernized, even disposed of or abandoned. This kind of option, the 
abandonment or complete replacement, is not available in the case of irrigation 
management. Irrigation systems are very costly and the whole ecology, the population, 
and the agriculture system itself have been designed and prepared to work in harmony 
with the irrigation system. An irrigated agricultural system, once installed, becomes 
more or less fixed and cannot be easily changed and, therefore, how an existing system 
can be improved or better utilized is an important subject matter for the irrigation 
management specialist to study. Results of various researches show that there are 
various ways of overcoming the physical limitation, such as more efficient planning to 
cope with the limits of physical systems and also institutional devices that may be used 
to overcome some of the institutional limitations, such as taking over of water 
distribution functions by farmers' organizations to make the supply more responsive to 
demand. These are the types of suggestions made by the researches in this area in the 
last ten years. 

However, the aspect of internal management of irrigation organizations still has 
been left unanswered. that is, what would make the internal organization more effective 
and efficient. Even if some of the physical constraints are overcome, will the 
organization as it exists now function effectively? Even if a somewhat optimal solution 
of water distribution within the constraints is found, will the organization in question 
be able to accomplish the job as expected? Or will decisions derived from that solution 
actually be implemented? These are the type of questions the irrigation management 
specialists or the Irrigation Specialists found the answers wanting. 

Behind the systems and organizations, manuals and procedures, there is a social 
process or organizational process working in the management of irrigation systems. 
How the people who close and open the gate, people who make water distribution 
decisions, people who repair the dam, people who supervise the operations actually 
behave in the actual situation, why do they behave that way, and what will make them 
behave differently have been a neglected area of research. Even if there is a grand 
optimal plan, how to make these people conform to the plan or when there are 
unforeseen events cropping up, how will these people handle the problems rather 
effectively or satisfactorily are questions to be raised here. The irrigation management, 
has been studied as a water distribution system, as a system of design of a physical 
structure, or as a logical planning process but rarely have we examined what makes the 
people in the irrigation organization tick. Why some organizations perform well while 
others are not performing? What are the processes that impede or the processes that 
will facilitate the smooth running of internal operations of the irrigation system? All 

3 



these we have rarely gone into. We always treated the management process inside the 
irrigation organization or the internal working of the irrigation bureaucracy as a black 
box. Canals were dug, attempts made to distribute water to various outlets, water flow 
or water distribution measured and some kind of rotation plans devised but we have 
not studied the interaction and processes that takes place in the whole complex of 
organization, responding to various environmental pressures and changes. What makes 
the actual decision differ from optimal one or what makes the irrigation manager behave 
differently from what is expected or why do they behave the way they behave now, 
have not been the subject of the study. 

We have been, in fact, treating irrigation systems essentially as a large optimizing 
physical systems with the various means of manipulation or various means of water 
planning but never really recognizing the organizational processes as a system by itself 
ultimately embracing or influencing the physical systems. It is, therefore, felt that the 
next phase of research activities will emphasize the organizational processes and how 
to make these organizational processes more effective. Again, it must also be recognized 
that studying these organizational processes will not complete the picture or will not 
close this chapter of irrigation research. The internal processes or the organizational 
processes of irrigation systems operate within the larger context of government, social 
system and cultural milieus of a country. It should be realized that irrigated agriculture 
or irrigation system is part of the total agricultural development, and, organization wise, 
part of the total agricultural sector management. The macroorganizational relationships 
or interorganizational relationships are so influenced and pervasive that problems of the 
irrigation system will have to be sorted out in that context only. Improvement that 
could be attained by studying its organization itself will be limited or constrained again 
by the context within which an organization or irrigation system operates. We shall be 
paying some attention to the interorganizational aspects in our present efforts, but it 
should be pointed out that going into the interorganizational relationship requires a 
much more thorough and time-consuming case analysis which we could not accomplish 
in this research. 

The next question is, 'what we can get out of this study or the study of internal 
dynamics of the organizational as well as the external or macro relationship of the 
irrigation organizations.' First of all we feel that by studying the internal dynamics of 
the organization we will know what are the organizational slacks. Every organization 
has areas that can be easily dealt with or slacks that can be tightened for more effective 
performance; the irrigation organization will be no exception. For instance, we could see 
that of 50 systems that we have studied in the Philippines, some systems are very 
effectively run while other systems are lagging behind. We should be able to uncover 
why some systems are performing well and others are not, pointing to us organizational 
potentials that need to be harnessed. In addition, special problems of organizations 
could also be discovered by the research methods applied in this research. The 
organization being a social system, connections between the parts or, connections 
between the subsystems may not be as precise as in the mechanical system. Information 

4 




flow between the parts of the system may not be working, feedback not be forthcoming, 
signals not properly designed or operated. In addition, being an adaptive system, like 
the human system, the social system could cope or improvise with changes as they come 
along. The nature of the system is such that even without full integration or being fully 
efficient, a social system will still be serving and may still be producing a large part of 
what is required. Therefore, it is very difficult really to judge whether a system is in 
perfect order or not. The study will attempt not only to uncover the imperfections of 
the systems but also to deal with problems of measuring the performance in such a 
context. 

Why, apart from physical systems, people who operate the systems, people who 
open and close the gates, people who give the signals, people who act on the basis of 
these signals, behave the way they do is the next important aspect of this study. Why 
these persons at any particular time will follow the order while they deviate from or 
circumvent at some other time, why they improvise it, and under what conditions these 
practices occur are the questions raised here in this research. In other words, what 
motivates these people to work exactly as they are doing now and what will motivate 
these people to behave differently from the one the way they have been doing will also 
be a subject of the study. Without understanding what motivators are needed to ignite 
employees' interest and enthusiasm even in the adverse circumstances or how to make 
workers adapt to difficult situations, it will be difficult for the organization to succeed. 
How social systems will operate depend on how well motivational process and human 
dynamics are working. This paper should deal with that aspects of motivation and 
socio-human dynamics, possibly suggesting ways in which the system management can 
be improved. 

5 




CHAPTER 2 

THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 

The purpose of the research is threefold: the first, to make a cross cultural and 
inter organizational comparison between different types of irrigation organizations in Sri 
Lanka, Philippines and possibly in India, the second, to study the macro-organizational 
relationship of strategy, organizational design and performance in the context of the 
environmental change in a particular irrigation organization, the third, to analyze the 
internal dynamics of such an organization, that is, to make a micro study of work units 
or systems or offices in irrigation organizations so that we could suggest improvements 
that could be done to make these systems or subsystems perform more effectively and 
efficiently. Regarding these three objectives, this paper is not planned to deal with the 
inter-organizational or inter-cultural comparison. That will be the subject of a synthesis 
paper which will be written after various reports on irrigation organizations in the 
selected countries are completed. 

To the organization about which we are studying, objective two and objective 
three will be most relevant. In other words, from each of these selected organizations 
which we study, we shall make our reports or findings available to the management of 
these organizations so that their operations could be further understood and 
improvements in the organizational processes will be undertaken. The main work of the 
report will be concentrated on the study of the internal dynamics of the National 
Irrigation Administration, that is, the study of the various work units, subsystems or 
offices of the NIA and how they are inter-related and how they are operating, either 
effectively or ineffectively. This analysis will be also interpreted in the light of the larger 
macro organizational analysis. In other words, this will mean how strategic choices 
made by the organization in the light of environmental changes affect the internal 
operation of the organization. It is hoped that the study of organizational reactions to 
the environments and the development of macroorganizational strategies will provide 
perspectives within which how the work unit or the internal operations work will be 
interpreted. 

RESEARCH QUESTIONS 

Based on the purposes of the research we have just defined, we could raise three 
research questions for this study. The first question relates to inter-relationships between 
organizational effectiveness and the strategies, policies and culture of the organization. 
How different strategies or policies undertaken by different organizations under varying 
circumstances work and under what contingent conditions organizational effectiveness 
is achieved will be explored in this study. Conditions and constraints will include both 
cultural and social milieus within which the organization operates. The unit of such a 
study will be the organization itself. Since we only have here three organizations, under 
what conditions the NIA in the Philippines is more effective than the Irrigation 

6 



Department in Sri Lanka will have to rely more on the indepth case study type of 
analysis than on statistical modelling. The scope for statistical analysis will be limited 
although some methods of statistics will be used. In other words, how organizational 
design, organizational strategies, policies and culture are related to the effectiveness is 
one major part of this study. However, this report will include only a case study of NIA 
and a comparison cannot be done at this stage. 

The next question is how different work units within the organization operate in 
relation to demands, context, and requirements of the larger organization. This study 
is very crucial because effectiveness of any larger organization depends upon the 
network of sub systems or the work units that form the organization itself. Work 
planning, implementation, control and feedback, essential processes of management, are 
all taking place within work units and, how these sub units or work units operate is 
actually a crux of the organizational effectiveness. Here we shall study the structure 
and processes of the work unit, such as specialization, centralization, group formation, 
decision making, feedback control. The incentive or the functions of motivators will also 
be an important aspect of the study. In addition, both actual measurable outcomes of 
the work unit such as productivity, economic performance, and also perceived or more 
subjective outcomes as seen by the members of the work group themselves, such as 
morale, job satisfaction will also be studied. In addition, how adaptive the organizations 
are to the changing conditions and what modes (bureaucratic, managerial or 
entrepreneurial) are adopted by these work units will also be explored in this research. 
Both outcomes and the various processes and structures will be related in an attempt to 
decipher main and contingent conditions which determine the degree of success or 
failure of these units. We are fortunate to have a readymade problem cut out for us in 
the National Irrigation Administration. In NIA, operating systems both Provincial 
Irrigation Offices (PIO) and the National Irrigation Systems (NIS) are placed on the 
financial accountability basis, and the financial success or failure is one important 
yardstick of organizational performance in these units. They operate on the basis of a 
fair degree of financial independence and responsibility to recover costs and to 
contribute its financial surplus to the main organization. At present, the management 
itself was very much concerned why a number of units or systems, that is, irrigation 
systems and PIOs are performing very well, while others are not. This raises the classic 
question of 'what makes some of the organizations tick and why others do not.' We 
shall have sufficient information, both hard and soft data, to analyze this problem of 
performance in terms of various characteristics. This will form a major part of this 
study. 

The third research question is concerned with the study of individual behaviour 
in organization. This question relates to how well individual personnel in irrigation 
organizations are given responSibility, controlled, commanded and motivated. The unit 
of study here is individual. We have nearly 250 observations about how the individuals 
are assigned to their jobs, perform their jobs and feel about their jobs in the National 
Irrigation Administration. We have included a Job Design Questionnaire which 

7 




examines the various aspects of design of the jobs, which provides an opportunity to 
examine how to design or redesign jobs so as to improve the individual's performance 
in the organization It is expected that the results will help the organization's decision 
makers in redesigning, reallocating, or restructuring jobs in the organization. 

As we discuss the three research questions, it would be legitimate to ask how 
these three questions are to be interpreted in terms of or related to a larger picture of 
organization theory, apart from their purely utilitarian benefits for organizations. We 
would like to mention that all three questions we raise are essentially derived from the 
current organizational and job design theories. The first, let me explain, that the macro­
organizational design, that is, how environment, strategies and organizational design 
influence the effectiveness of the organizations, is a culmination of a set of new trail 
blazing ideas germinating in the last thirty years. Essentially, this proposition is derived 
from three main strands of thoughts in organizational theory. It should be noted that 
before 1960 the organizational theory in its infancy was very much held back by the 
concept that organizations are a complete system by itself, regardless of whatever 
changes in the outside world. In other words, organization is treated as a static 
mechanical system. Under such a restricted thinking very few propositions can be 
drawn which could explain the behaviour of the organization. The size of the span of 
control, the number of layers, divisionalizations are explained as part of a mechanical 
system. As such, often a mathematical modelling was resorted to without much 
relevance to actual behaviour. One theory presented mathematically, or rather 
mechanically, is that relationship between group members multiplied geometrically or 
disproportionately, as more subordinates are added under a supervisor. As such,S 
subordinates under one supervisor is presented as optimum. This preposition was never 
taken seriously. The span of control in organization will always depend on qualitative 
and technosocial requirements of a particular workplace. In addition, this theory failed 
to take into account the environment which influences the internal operations of the 
sysh:m. The fact is that organization is never a machine devoid of the environment. 
Organization is something which grows out of the environment, operates within it and 
interacts with it all its life. Why a particular organization is successful under certain 
circumstances in a particular situation can never be understood without going into its 
inter relationships with the environment. 

When the idea of open system concept was first raised, it was a revelation by 
itself. Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) has made a real step forward in studying the 
organization in their classic research on the Organization and Environment in the late 
1960s. Another seminal research in this area which added much to our understanding 
of organizations was the preposition that the organizational structure is influenced by 
the strategies or the kind of the general approach the organization chooses to interact 
with, to take advantage of or to cope with environmental changes or changes in the 
surrounding competitive situation. In addition, how types of strategies one takes 
gene·rally lead into relevant structures and then influences the result or performance of 
the enterprise is another novel concept which came into existence again in the early 

8 



1960s. This finding was reported after studying in depth the development history of a 
number of large corporations and the industrial structure in the United States {Chandler, 
1967). In addition, treating the organization as an institution or as a social system, not 
purely as a mechanism, was another major step forward in the same direction. The 
concept of organization as a living soci~l system where tradition grows or where the 
culture influences the style of management that comes into existence is very useful and 
many propositions are dervied from these theories: Parsons, the pioneer, and many later 
social scientists were responsible for the eventual evolution of this approach. When 
these three ideas were put together the understanding of the organization in action and 
in environment became a very vibrant and fruitful research topic and many 
specifications, conditions and contingent ideas are developed. 

Three Causal Models 

We would like to mention that our primary hypothesis is derived from these ideas 
adapted to the special need of irrigation organizations. Figure 2.1 is a general model of 
this research which encompasses the micro management framework that we described 
earlier as the main theme. 

FIGURE 2.1 

A MACRO MODEL OF MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOUR AND PERFORMANCE 


IN IRRIGATION ORGANIZATIONS 


Govt. Policies 
Users' Demands 
Financial Crunch 
Environmental Lobby 

r~ 

Environment 

ManagerialManagerial 

Policies! 
 Performance 
Culture 

Agency 
Integrated Management 
Corporate 

Managerial Behaviour 

1. Bureaucratic 
2. Pseudo Bureaucratic 
3. Managerial 
4. Entrepreneurial 

9 




In this you will find that the dependant variable is the performance. Independent 
variables are environment, managerial policy and culture, organizational structure and 
managerial behaviour. Environmental variable includes five sub variables. One of them 
is resource uncertainty and constraints, the others being environmental uncertainties 
such as drought or climatic changes in the case of irrigation organizations, client 
relationships which will include the farmers' consciousness and collectiveness of the 
farmers or how well farmers' organizations are organized or how well they are 
organized as an interest group. In addition, the list also includes complexity of demand: 
the number, types of kinds, and complexity of services being demanded. The last aspect 
is concerned with accountability and independence: how far the organizations are 
accountable to what authority and how independent they are in terms of budgetary 
control. These are the important aspects of the environmental factor and which we will 
be discussing within the context of macro management framework. Besides the 
environmental variables, the way the goals are formed or the objectives are set is also 
another important set of variables which greatly influences the internal working of 
irrigation organizations. In fact, this variable is relevant to all the government 
organizations in general though government organizations are known for rarely having 
concrete objectives set down. 

The next one is managerial policy and culture which includes the demographicS 
or basic characteristics of the organization, and the domain of the organization, such as 
the type of strategies, the kind of focus that the individual organization is paying 
attention to. All these will be the important aspects of the managerial policy. In 
addition, the way the management styles are formed and organizational culture and 
values are evolved or developed will also be the important aspects of this model. The 
last one will be the organizational structure. This includes the vertical, horizontal or 
spatial differentiation of the organization, method of integrating various units in the 
organization and also the distribution of power, the last one, the distribution or authority 
or power, being a dominant aspect of organizational structure. All these will be 
converging to influence the managerial behaviour, to be described either as bureaucratic, 
that is, merely responding to the rules and regulations or as manageriat that is, having 
a set of rational objectives and trying to achieve these objectives with the least amount 
of cost or a systematization of the management process. One may also have the 
entrepreneur or adaptive behaviour, that is, a tendency, not only trying to make it 
efficient and workable, but also trying to go one step further by taking advantage of the 
environment, adapting into a new situation or creating something which will overcome 
the environmental or the organizational constraints. In addition, there may also be a 
hybrid kind of behaviour or a pseudo bureaucratic behaviour. Whereas bureaucratic 
behaviour is a complete obedience or compliance with the rules and regulations or the 
formalization of that behaviour, the pseudo bureaucratic behaviour describes the 
tendencies in which formal rules are violated at convenience but followed when other 
social or personalized obligations are not operative. This is the kind of behaviour which 
one may face in many of the organizations in developing countries. Generally, the 
standard answer according to the formal rules and regulations will prevail if the seeker 

10 




of the services is not known to the official or if the case in question is of no interest to 
the bureaucrat, whereas in cases where personal interest is involved or some particular 
social mores favour, then the response will be different and rules may even be flouted 
or violated depending on the intimacy of the relationship or nature of obligations 
between the person seeking the bureaucratic redress and the man who made the 
decision. 

It is hypothesized in this study that the way the organization behave, or what 
kinds of behaviour, such as, bureaucratic, pseudo bureaucratic, managerial or 
entrepreneurial are predominant will be greatly influenced by the environment, 
organizational styles and also organizational structures. In other words, how 
organizational process leads to the effectiveness or otherwise of the organization can be 
studied only within the context of these independent variables, such as, environment 
structure and policies and strategies. 

The next question we ask is how well individual work unit within the 
organization effectively operate. As we have stated earlier, the study of environment, 
strategies and structure in one case study as in this report only provides a framework 
indicating tendencies and probable relationships which could only be analyzed in 
qualitative terms. The real crux of the study lies in discovering how internal workings 
of the organization which matter most set down objectives and implement policies. How 
work units are actually carrying out the day to day tasks of the organization function 
is the hard core of the study. The working unit in the organization, organized or 
managed by a supervisor, which interacts with the environment as well as the other 
units and the clients is the essential nucleus which determine whether an organization 
makes or breaks. A study of the organizational dynamics, as we have stated before, 
must be done on the basis of these units. Regarding the performance of these units, we 
have another similar or parallel strands of thought from which the related hypotheses 
are derived. First of all, the way the working unit will be run depends upon how the 
supervisory or management style practiced. The way in which decision making is either 
centralized or decentralized, formalized or is allowed to improvise will depict the style 
of management. This supervisory or decision style adopted should be appropriate to the 
environment and the requirement of the job to be done. Under most circumstances, 
without some degree of improvisation, rigid adherence to the organizational rule will 
make organizations less effective. The study will identify supervisory styles of work 
units and relate these to the performance of work units. Certainly the organizational 
structure is another important aspect: How sub units are structured or how the 
individuals in the sub units are placed and how responsibilities are distributed is another 
variable that we must look into. The next idea is the concept of the systems. While the 
organization is a main system, working units in organizations are considered as sub 
systems or microcosm of the larger systems. The success of the larger system depends 
on its smaller representation, just as the other way round is true. As a functioning social 
system, processes of communication (effective interaction with other related units of the 
main system), control, and feedback will be the crux of the sub-system's continued 

11 



Unit 
f---~--j 

Unit 
Structure 

survival and existence. As a social human process the idea of motivation will form a 
crucial part. Without motivating the people, or being able to locomote them to a desired 
direction, it will be very difficult for any organization to be successful. Motivation in 
turn will grow or arise principally from type of job responsibility given as well as from 
incentives arrangements operative in the organizations. In other words, we assume that 
as in the model Figure 2.2, the organizational structure, responsibility and incentive 
process, will influence the organizational processes which will, in turn, determine the 
performance of sub units. 

FIGURE 2.2 

MICRO MANAGEMENT MODEL 

Size of Unit 
Technicalization 
Specialization 
Work Flow 

In addition, rewards and incentives appropriately given will also be reinforcing the 
productive or performance related behaviour. This, again, is the micro organizational 
model which we shall utilize in analyzing micro organizational units that operate within 
the main organizations and the hypotheses we shall be testing will be derived from the 
basic concepts we have just described. 

12 

Environment 
) 

Policies 
and 
Culture 

~ 


Organizational 
Structures~ 

Decision Making 
Performance­
Standards 

Distribution of 
Authority 

Modes of Integration 

Inter Unit Relations 


Responsibility 

and 


Incentives 


Organizational 
Goal 

Performance 



The last question relates to the individuals. This level of study is related to how 
the individuals themselves are given or assigned responsibility and how they actually 
perform or operate in the organizations. The unit of study in this analysis is the 
individual himself and the study is concerned with the job characteristics, individual 
psychological propensities, motivation and reinforcement and outcomes. It is surmised 
that a type of skill or the skill variety, identity of tasks, significance of tasks will 
influence how individuals feel about the meaningfulness of his work. On the other 
hand, how autonomous for the individual to operate in his work situation will also lead 
to the way he experiences about his job. The feeling or attachment that he gets by 
working autonomously or independently in his job or the feeling that he is responsible 
for himself and also enjoys a large degree of discretion will raise his psychological state 
and increase his work motivation which, in turn, will affect the outcome of the job. Any 
reward that comes with the achievement will again reinforce the basic feeling about the 
job. In other words, there is a loop where the outcome itself will again influence the 
continuity of selective behaviour that leads success and reward. 

FIGURE 2.3 

INDIVIDUAL LEVEL JOB DESIGN MODEL .. 

Job Characteristicsi 

~-------------------) 

Moderators 
Social Background 
Growth Need Strength , 
Skill and Training I 

forts 

v 

High Work Motivation 
High Satisfaction 

Work Effectiveness 

.. Adapted from H.J. Richard Hackman's Complete Job Characteristic Model 

13 



Figure 2.3 depicts the relationship we have just described. Through this modet 
we shall be able to find out what factors are prevalent or more predominant in work 
situations of the National Irrigation Administration, Philippines, indicating what possible 
measures for improving the work behaviour and outcome. 

It is intended that in our research we will be including questionnaires which will 
be relating to job assignments, job characteristics, job motivation and job outcomes to be 
answered by the respondents of the various levels in the organization. Variations in 
these characteristics will be analyzed cross-classifying various possible influencing factors 
such as organizational type, type of educational preparation, type of jobs, location of 
units. The idea behind this is that by making note of, in what type of organization, what 
kind of job assignment and what type of job performance are taking place, and also, at 
what level, what particular problems are more prominent than other, cross-classified or 
further analyzed by region and by responsibility centres, we shall be able to make a 
systematic analysis of the whole job design and job performance in the organization. 

Although the study has theoretical underpinnings and implications it is intended 
as a practical study to analyze the functioning organizations and to help improve the 
organizations in all its faces of operations and performance. We do expect that at the 
end of this study there will be a series of indicative ideas that will have a practical value 
for the organization, NIA, so well collaborating with us in this endeavour. 

14 



CHAPTER 3 

RESEARCH DESIGN 

We have already explained that in this research there are three levels of variables 
that are involved, each having a defined unit of studies. The first level is the study of 
the comparative organization. That is the study of irrigation organizations in various 
countries in their totality. At this levet unit of study is organizations, in our case, 
National Irrigation Administration in the Philippines, Irrigation Department in Sri Lanka 
and also Mahaweli Authority in Sri Lanka. It is already noted that at this level we shall 
be studying the environmental situations, managerial approaches, structural variables, 
organizational culture, management styles and the performance of organizations. We 
have also designed in our previous chapter on Conceptual Framework an approximate 
causal relationship that may have existed between these variables. But we have 
indicated that the Philippine report will only deal with this topic - macro management 
study - only as a qualitative perspective to understand and help interpret finding of 
micro management and individual job design studies. For the study of work unit in the 
organization, which is the crux of this study or this report the unit of study of NIA will 
include the administrative and staff divisions in headquarters, administrative and staff 
divisions in regional offices, regional irrigation systems owned and operated by the 
Government NIA itself, and also the PIOs, Provincial Irrigation Offices which design, 
construct and service the irrigation systems operated by the various farmer 
organizations. As the individual level study, selected respondents from each work unit 
will also be asked to answer the questionnaire on the job design. 

In the following two section, we shall first describe operationalization of variables 
set out in our theoretical models into measurable instruments and then report on the 
pretesting and improvement of the questionnaires we have adopted for the purpose. 

Operationalization of Variables 

The original questionnaire, Revised Organization Assessment Framework and 
Instruments (OAI) include two modules, Organizational Unit Design Module and OAI 
Job Design Module. The original modules are modified to suit our purpose and the 
Organizational Unit Design Module in our modified version includes two sets of 
questionnaires, one for the supervisor of the unit and the other for the unit members. 
The Job Design Module has only one questionnaire for job incumbents in the unit. 
Questionnaires used in each module are used to construct indices relating to various 
aspects of organizational or job design concepts. Our own questionnaire only slightly 
differs from the revised OAI questionnaires. Table 3.1 and Table 3.2 give the list indices 
which subsume our questionnaires. 

15 




TABLE 3.1 
INDICES IN ORGANIZATIONAL UNIT DESIGN 

UNIT STRUCTURE 

1. Role Interchangeability 
2. Unit Skill Heterogeneity 
3. Unit Automation 
4. Unit Standardization 

UNIT DECISION-MAKING 

5. Distribution of Authority 
6. Unit Chain of Command 

UNIT INCENTIVES 

7. Unit Incentives 

UNIT PROCESS 

8. Workflow Interdependence within Unit 
9. Job Dependence among Unit Personnel 

10. Inter Unit Communication Flow 
11. Inter Unit Conflict 
12. Method of Conflict Resolution 

PERFORMANCE 

13. Perceived Unit Performance 
14. Financial Performance Index 

The following are brief operational definitions of each of the indices. 

Role Interchangeability: Interchangeability means the degree to which A can 
perform B's job and B can perform A's job at short notice, even when A and B 
have different job titles or different functional assignments. Question items 
included here will be concerned with job rotation and one's preparedness to 
perform different tasks. 

Unit Skill Heterogeneity: It is defined as the range of different skills and 
conceptions possessed by people in an organizational unit as a group. 

16 



Unit Automation: It refers to the degree to which machines, computers, 
equipment and other mechanical or electronic devices are used to perform and 
control work activities in a whole work unit. 

Unit Standardization: It is defined as an extent to which rules, standard 
operating procedures and performance expectations or targets are formalized and 
followed to coordinate, control and evaluate unit activities. 

Unit Distribution of Authority: The degree by which the decision-making power 
(say in various important elements such as setting of targets, making of rules, 
enforcement of rules and rewarding of performance) is possessed by and shared 
among the various personnel in the organizational unit. 

Unit Chain of Command: It refers to the extent to which communication and 
work assignment flow upwards and downwards through the formal chain of 
command. 

Unit Incentives: It is a broad concept that includes (a) the degree to which 
individual or group performance results in rewards for doing good work and 
sanctions for doing poor work; (b) the degree to which group pressures on unit 
members to conform to expected performance standards. 

Workflow Interdependence within Unit: The extent to which the workflow 
within the unit is independent, interdependent or team-operated. 

Tob Dependence among Unit Personnel: The workflow index provides only an 
indication of the work interconnectedness but not the intensity of work 
interdependence. Though interdependent workers may be working 
independently by buffering or stockpiling. This index measures how each 
person's job actually depends upon the other (supervisor, unit members, people 
in other units) with regard to the whole work cycle, input, transformation and 
output. 

Unit Communications or Information Flows: The extent or frequency of flow 
of work related messages sent among unit personnel through different modes of 
communications, personal, written and group or staff channels. 

Unit Conflict: It refers to the frequency of disagreements and disputes among 
unit personnel and the extent to which unit members hinder the efforts of others 
in work performance. 

17 




Method of Conflict Resolution: It is concerned with how different methods of 
resolution such as avoiding issues, by smoothing over issues, confronting issues 
and resorting hierarchical authority are applied and the extent by which each 
method is used. 

Perceiving Unit Performance: It is a subjective measure of how individual 
members feel about how well each unit has achieved its performance targets 
regarding quantity, quality, innovativeness, reputation for excellence, goal 
attainments, efficiency, morale and general level of performance. 

Financial Performance: Here we use the index used by the organization itself in 
measuring the financial success of each unit, viability index. The viability index 
is the relative ratio income over expenditure. It broadly measures whether each 
unit has covered its cost and provides surplus to the whole organization. 

The details of each index which mention question items used for measuring the 
concept have been described in Appendix C. It should be noted that the above 
operational definitions are drawn on the descriptions used by OAI's original authors. 
It should also be noted that the indices we have just described cover generally the 
variables we have mentioned in the micro management model, referred to in Figure 2.2 
previously referenced. The job headings in Table 3.1 are actually equivalents of variables 
included in micro management models. 

Next, Table 3.2, indicates indices to be constructed from the questionnaire on job 
design. The Job Design Questionnaire was answered by at least two persons (one senior 
and lOne junior person) in each of the work units surveyed. 

18 




TABLE 3.2 
JOB DESIGN INDICES 

JOB CHARACfERISTICS 

1. Task Difficulty 
2. Task Variability 
3. Standardization 

JOB AUTONOMY 

4. Job Authority 
5. Job Pressure 
6. Job Accountability 

JOB CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND 

7. Job Expertise 
8. Type of Jobs 
9. Growth Need Strength of the Incumbent 

JOB FEEDBACK AND CONTROL 

10. Job Feedback 
11. Expectation of Rewards and Sanctions 

JOB OUTCOME 

12. Job Satisfaction 
13. Work Motivation 

We next describe the operational definitions of each of the indices or variables. 

Task Difficulty: This refers to the analyzability and predictability of work 
undertaken by individuals, while analyzability refers to the clarity with which one 
knows how to size up incoming work and select appropriate methods for dealing 
with it, predictability is concerned with the ease with which one could determine 
in advance the outcome of the sequences of particular steps in the job. This 
variable is a continuum ranging from highly programmed work to work 
dependent on guessing and chance taking. 

Task Variability: It is defined as the number of exceptions encountered in the 
characteristic of work. It is measured by the number of different tasks, of 
exceptions and of different steps involved in the work process. 

19 



Standardization: It is the degree to which the roles and task assignments that 
make up a job are written out in a job description. It measures the number of 
rules and procedures established to gUide the job incumbent in work 
performances. 

Job Authority: It is defined as the amount of discretion or influence that the job 
incumbent exercises in making job related decisions regarding (a) roles and task 
assignments; (b) procedures to follows; (c) how to handle the exceptions. 

Tab Pressure: It is the composite of the amount of workload assigned to a job 
incumbent, the lead time available to perform it and the extent to which the 
incumbent can control the pace of work. 

Job Accountability: It is defined as the degree to which a job incumbent feels 
responsible and is asked to answer for his or her work decisions and behaviour. 
The questions made of this variable includes the extent to which one is 
responsible for work decisions, achieving standards, the extent of the 
responsibility assumed, and the extent of commitment to the responsibility. 

Job Expertise: It is the skill level of the job incumbent in terms of formal and 
professional education, length of job entry orientation and training, amount of 
time spent by the incumbent in on the job training and reading necessary for 
satisfactory level of performance on the job. 

Type of Job: It includes various classifications of jobs by the level of position in 
the hierarchy, by professional, technical or administrative categories, by staff and 
time jobs and by clerical and semi skilled, technical and executive groupings. 

Growth Need Strength of the Incumbent: The growth need strength of the 
incumbent is defined as the degree to which the respondent desires to fulfil self­
actualization needs for his and her own job. This is viewed on the basis that 
individual difference factors are pre existing in the work unit. The instrument 
uses the forced choice technique, that is, the choice between two desirable work 
or between two less desirable states, so as to make the response to be less 
influenced by socially desirable positions. This is adopted from the Job 
Diagnostic Survey by Hackmann and Oldham (1974). 

Tab Feedback: It measures the degree to which the incumbent receives 
information about his job work and his level of performance for the job, peers and 
supervisor. 

Expectation of Rewards and Sanctions: It includes two constructs: one measures 
the extent to which the respondent anticipates that good job performance will 
result in some reward and the poor performance will result in some punishment. 

20 




Tab Satisfaction: It measures an affective reaction or feeling by an employee on 
how happy or satisfied he or she is with the job, supervisor, co-workers, pay and 
current and future career potential. This construct is similar in its construction 
to the well established job descriptive index commonly used in the job analysis 
surveys. 

Work Motivation: It is concerned with the amount of effort an employee exerts 
in performing his job and the degree to which he or she is self motivated to 
perform effectively on the job. 

The details of each index describing the questions included is shown in Appendix 
C. 

It should be recorded that the questionnaires and indices are adopted from the 
methodology developed by the OAI designers whose contribution to the development 
of organizational assessment methodology is very considerable. 

Pre-testing and Improvement of Instruments 

In the previous section we have explained how different variables are defined and 
how they would be operationalized. Generally, almost all these variables that we have 
selected are based on the instruments and the questionnaire designed by the 
Organizational Assessment Centre in the University of Pennsylvania. It has developed, 
tested and presented their model of Organizational Assessment Instruments (OAl) which 
includes various aspects of organizational analysis that we are actually using in this 
survey. There are two portions in the original questionnaire of the OAI: one relating to 
the organizational design of the work unit and the other relating to the job design 
characteristics. These two portions form one questionnaire in the original instruments 
and given out to the participants in the organizations, both supervisors and members 
of the organization though the supervisor's questionnaire is slightly different from the 
member's questionnaire. In our case, we separated these two questionnaires mainly 
because the original questionnaire was too long, each having sixty to seventy questions, 
and in the pre-test it was found that the inordinate time the respondent has to spend to 
complete the original questionnaires. One scaled-down version includes an 
organizational design questionnaire which includes only the organizational aspects to 
be answered by both supervisors and senior members of the group, and another 
questionnaire, called Job Design questionnaire, to be answered by various members of 
the group. The organizational design questionnaire for the supervisor has included one 
additional set of questions for measuring environmental conditions in the system. A 
mini questionnaire for measuring the effectiveness of water delivery system was also 
added in this new set of questionnaires. In addition, the Focal Unit Questionnaire of the 
OAI set also was used to solicit responses about inter unit relations. The Job Design 
questionnaires were answered by remaining members who range from the assistant 
supervisors to the field assistants. 

21 




In preparing the instruments, we first analyzed the instruments suggested by the 
Organizational Assessment Centre, that is the OAl instruments, on the basis of variables 
that we have set down to study. We looked at each question and see whether it is 
meaningful, understandable or relevant in our setting. Some of the wording we can see 
as out of place or not meaningful to us. It should be remembered that the questionnaire 
was prepared in an American setting and, therefore, the idioms, the language, the usage, 
the significance and meaning of the questions in the work setting are designed for 
respondents in American situation. Whether each of these questions is meaningful to 
our respondents or, whether they will convey in our setting different shades of meaning 
or meanings different from what was intended is all considered. Researchers having had 
years of experience in this part of the world and also natives of the Asian culture were 
able to analyze relevance and meaningfulness of these questions to their setting. 
Accordingly, some of the questions are modified, some of the terminologies have been 
changed and also some of the questions that which could never get answered or not 
likely get the true answer inour setting are also dropped from the questionnaire. 

This initial analysis of the questions was done by the researchers themselves. 
Later, before these questionnaires were used, the questionnaires were given to the 
colleagues who are currently posted to our organization but have done a job similar to 
what prospective respondents will be doing now. The International Irrigation 
Management Institute has in its employ some of the Heads of the Departments or senior 
officials who had worked in the Irrigation Department or the Mahaweli Authority. We 
requested these colleagues to answer the questionnaires, to record the time taken to 
answer the questionnaires and also to give their reactions to these questionnaires. One 
former senior engineer and one former system engineer from Sri Lanka, in addition to 
one other former colleague at IIMI and now holding a responsible position in one of the 
irrigation agencies in Sri Lanka volunteered to answer the questionnaires. They also 
went through each question carefully and gave their reactions to these questionnaires. 
Accordingly, we took into account their reactions when modifying these questionnaires. 

At this stage, we still are using the original questionnaires except some 
modifications. The organization design and job design questions still are included in a 
single questionnaires as in the OAl's version. Next we arranged with the Irrigation 
Department of Sri Lanka to pretest these questionnaires in the field situation. In the 
pretest sessions, assembled respondents were given a brief introduction about the 
purpose of the pretest, the ultimate usefulness of the research, and also about researchers 
themselves. The anonymity of respondents, the importance of giving true and frank 
answers and the non existence of one correct answer to each question posed were 
explained. They are also asked to mark the time taken to answer each portion of the 
que'stionnaire and also to note down the questions they could not understand or feel 
unclear of. After the sessions, the respondents were offered food and drinks and a 
roundtable discussion on the questionnaires was conducted and their reactions were 
solicited. In these sessions, general field situation and their organizational and work 
experiences also were discussed. In these sessions, we used four sets of questionnaires: 

22 




(1) Supervisor Questionnaire; (2) Member Questionnaire: (3) Focal Unit Questionnaire; 
and (4) Water Delivery Performance Questionnaire. The Water Delivery Performance 
Questionnaire included the questions about water planning and distribution practices, 
developed on the basis of experiences from the lIM!' s previous projects. All other 
questionnaires used the original versions of the OAl questionnaires with very slight 
modifications. 

23 




TABLE 3.3 
CHARACTERISTICS OF PRETEST SAMPLE 

KURUNEGALA RANGE 

Number of Respondents Venue 
JOB by Questionnaire Type of 

TITLE 
Supervisor Member Focal Unit 

Interview 

Irrigation Local 
Engineer 04 Rest House 

Division Engineer 01 

Provincial Deputy 
Engineer 01 I 

Irrigation 
Engineer (Design) 01 

Divisional Asst. 02 

Accounts Officer 01 

Technical Asst. 03 

Total 06 04 03 
I 

GALGAMUWA CENTRE (Training School) 

Irrigation Training 
Engineer 01 01 Centre 

Resident Engineer 01 
Galgamuwa 

Deputy Director 01 

Technical Asst. 02 02 

Divisional 
Asst./Lecturer 02 01 

Total 03 05 03 

Grand Total 09 09 06 

24 




Table 3.3 titled 'Characteristics of Pretest Sample' explains the various aspects of 
the members and respondents who have answered the pretest questionnaires in our 
pretest efforts. The Kurunegala range is about one hundred miles away from Colombo 
and it is an important irrigation range. We invited a number of senior officials as well 
as junior officers to assemble in a local Rest House to answer these questionnaires, as 
we have explained before. In this session we had six members and six respondents 
answering supervisor's questionnaire, which included four irrigation engineers, one 
divisional engineer and one deputy engineer. In addition, there were four respondents 
answering member's questionnaire which included, again, one Irrigation Engineer 
(Design), two Divisional Assistants and one Technical Assistant. In addition, three 
Technical Assistants answered the Focal Unit Questionnaire. Likewise, in Galgamuwa 
the pretest was conducted in the Irrigation Training Centre in Galgamuwa and there are 
three respondents answering the Supervisor's questionnaire and five respondents 
answering the Member's questionnaire and three answering Focal Unit questionnaire. 
Among those, those who answered the Supervisor questionnaire included one Irrigation 
Engineer, one Resident Engineer and one Deputy Director. Those who answered the 
member questionnaires included two Technical Assistants, two Divisional Assistants or 
Lecturers and one Irrigation Engineer, whereas the three who answered the Focal Unit 
Questionnaire included two Technical Assistants and one Divisional Assistant cum 
Lecturer. On the whole, there were a grand total of twenty four respondents 
participated in this pretest sample ranging from, as we have stated before, the high level 
of Deputy Director to the lower level of Divisional Assistants or Technical Assistants. 

In our request or instruction to the respondents we included three questions on 
the basis of which respondents were to write their comments: (a) Are any of the 
questions not understandable or comprehensible; (b) Are any of them irrelevant to our 
environment; (c) Is there any question which cannot invoke or receive reasonably 
accurate or doubtful answers. These three questions, in fact formed the bases for the 
revision of the questionnaires: if there were a question which could not really reasonably 
get the correct answers or truthful answers from our respondents, we had to delete it; 
if there were any question which was not relevant to the local situation or did not fit in 
with local semantic, terminology or culture, then we had to delete or modify it; for any 
question not comprehensible, we had to re-write. 

From the session with respondents, the following experiences emerged. It took too 
long, two to three hours, for the respondents to answer the questionnaires and it was too 
tiring for them also to complete so many questionnaires in one sitting. These 
respondents felt that though stimulated and challenged by the questionnaires but they 
complained that some of the questions were too long, some of the terminologies not 
understandable, and they had to read too many words in each of the questions, some 
of the questions being very verbose. But they said that they were willing to answer the 
questionnaire as long as anonymity was maintained. In this instance, they felt that they 
were not hesitant nor had held back to give their true answer. 

25 




On return from these trips, questionnaires were thoroughly revised. In other 
words, a number of questions were modified and some of the words have been changed 
or made simpler and some of the ambiguous items were re-written. As it stands now 
the questionnaire is very much improved. Some of the obvious weaknesses the original 
designers of the questionnaire failed to notice also have been corrected. Instead of one 
whole questionnaire consisting of job design and organizational design questions, we 
split the organizational questionnaire into two portions or two parts, one is now called 
'Job Design Questionnaire' and the other 'Organizational Design.' Of course, by splitting 
the questionnaire, there was a change in the methodology itself from the original design. 
In the original design each respondent, either supervisors or members, answer both 
portions but in our case supervisors and some member will answer only the 
organizational design questionnaire. The job design portion would be answered by 
different sets of respondents; that means that the people who answered the supervisor 
qUE~stionnaires and member questionnaires will be excluded from the group that answers 
the job design questionnaire. In fact, now we were using different sets of people to 
answer a different portion of the questionnaires. 

This arrangement, however, is unlikely to create any disability or handicap as far 
as organizational design module is concerned. The same type of respondents who 
would have answered the organizational module in the original questionnaires were 
answering the new organizational design questionnaire. Moreover the organizational 
portion of the original questionnaire and the organizational design questionnaire in the 
new version are almost the same except some additions which as separate topics will not 
affect the construction of organizational design module in any important way. However, 
the problem arises in a new questionnaire created out of the job design portion, now 
called the Job Design Questionnaire, because those answering job design questionnaires 
under this new scheme may not be holding the same position as those respondents in 
the original design. In addition, the new version may leave the supervisor not 
answering the job design aspects of the questionnaire and in a way it would be a loss 
of valuable information. However, when we gave the job design questionnaires to our 
respondents we made sure that those who answered the job design questionnaire 
included senior members such as Assistant Engineers who often officiate as the manager 
of the systems as well as those who are junior members and roughly equivalent to 
members in the original design. We hoped that this would not handicap very much the 
whole research design. By having a slightly larger sample we also felt that there would 
be enough respondents in the job design questionnaire which would indicate the 
situation of the organization as well as the work unit under study. We also felt that as 
the time taken to answer each new questionnaire will be much shorter, we should get 
more ready and meaningful responses in the actual conduct of the research. In revising 
the questionnaires, we have taken the following steps. 

1. 	 Some of the terminology which were not meaningful to the cultural setting 
or which were not understandable to the respondent were changed or 
modified. 

26 



2. 	 Some of the questions which were not clearly spelt out or not clearly 
written were also revised to make it simpler and more understandable to 
the respondent. 

3. 	 Some of the free response questions, such as 'what kind of training one 
has' were slightly restructured so that coding process would become easier. 

4. 	 Some of the questions found to be too wordy were simplified and 
shortened. 

After the modifications, we, again, gave these revised questionnaires to a group of 
colleagues who were engineers before they joined the Institute as research staff. They 
went through the questionnaire again and gave reactions to the changes that have been 
made. That ended the final revision of the questionnaires. 

These modified versions were used in the Philippine field study. However, in the 
Philippines, we did not use any translation and all the questionnaires were printed in 
English as English was widely spoken in the Philippines and all prospective respondents 
were considered to have a working knowledge of English. It was assured by our 
Philippine colleagues in the IIMI that these questions could easily be understood and 
answered by them. However, in the case of Sri Lanka we learnt that, especially in the 
Mahaweli Authority, officers were not always conversant in English. So we decided to 
use the Sinhala version of the questionnaire for those who did not possess the english 
language facility. 

Finally, we proposed that the actual field survey included the following sets of 
ques tionnaire: 

1. 	 Supervisor's Organization Design Questionnaire. 

2. 	 Member's Organization Design Questionnaire, expected to be answered by 
more than one respondent. 

3. 	 Job Design Questionnaire, expected to be answered by two or more 
respondents, including both senior and junior ranks in each unit. 

4. 	 Focal Unit Questionnaire. 

5. 	 Water Delivery Performance Questionnaire. 

6. 	 A short set of environmental questions to be added to the Supervisor's 
questionnaire. 

27 



The OAI Focal Unit Questionnaire, is about how work unit under study relates 
itself to other work units inside the organization or work units from other outside 
agencies. This is an important questionnaire which will explore the interaction and 
interrelations between work units within the organization itself and also their 
relationship with other outside agencies in the whole complex of organizational process. 
The 'OAI Other Unit Questionnaire/ included in the original OAI's design was 
altogether dropped in our study. This questionnaire is to be used only after the Focal 
Unit Questionnaire identifies other units in other agencies. Then, a select group of other 
units in outside agencies will be asked to answer a few questions which are to be 
checked or counter-checked against the Focal Unit Questionnaire. From the beginning, 
we decided that within the time limit available we would not be able to use this 'Other 
Unit Questionnaire.' We would not have enough time to collect information from the 
Other Units such as Farmers' Organizations, though we knew that this questionnaire 
actually deal t with a very important aspect of organizational analysis. 

In addition to the four questionnaires that we have adopted from the original 
Organizational Assessment Instruments (OAl) we also introduced our own 
questionnaires. One on Water Delivery Performance and the other on Environment. The 
Water Delivery Performance questionnaire was constructed by Charles Nijman, Associate 
Expert, a member of the research team.· This questionnaire is related to the water 
planning and practice of the water delivery system in the various irrigation 
organizations. IIMI has done a number of research studies on the planning and actual 
delivery of water in various irrigation systems. In the early stages, most of these studies 
were done on the basis of interviews and by collecting information or records on the 
physical movement of water or water delivery. However, as IIMI had accumulated 
more experience, a more structured questionnaire was developed and applied in a 
number of field studies. These questions were found to be relevant and meaningful to 
any water management system. This questionnaire includes questions relating to three 
aspects, seasonal allocation plan, end-season allocation and water flow regulation. 
Seasonal allocation plan includes matching demand and supply, and planning the water 
allocation decisions and monitoring and evaluating the progress of the plan. The second 
portion is concerned with questions regarding improvisation needed to re-schedule to 
meet the actual demand and supply, progress monitoring, and also some of the ad hoc 
decisions that need to be made to correct any special situation that may arise during the 
in-between seasons. The third portion is related to the day to day routine operations of 
water management, such as opening and closing of gate, making daily allocative 
decisions and monitoring them as daily routines. These three sets of questions complete 
the allocation of water and the water management process in the irrigation system. This 
water delivery performance questionnaire was included in our pilot survey. Responses 
from both Galgamuwa and the Kurunegala areas and also responses from the 
Headquarter staff were utilized to revise the questionnaire. As in the other 
questionnaires, on the basis of these recommendations and comments, the questionnaire 
was thoroughly revised and made simpler for the individual to answer. It should be 
noted that this questionnaire also included some of the basic data such as size of the 

28 




farm, crop type, proportion of the crop and other important basic information fo