Like any successful organization, this book is a product of cooperation among many people in many places. The research reported here began in 1965 as part of the Comparative Organization Research Program, directed by Peter M. Blau, at the University of Chicago. Data for the first wave of the study of local finance agencies were collected in 1966 and early 1967 under the auspices of CORP. A panel or longitudinal design was not envisioned at the time. The longitudinal study was planned and the 1972 data collected while I was at Cornell University. The analysis of the data and preparation of articles and this work were undertaken at the University of California, Riverside.

I owe intellectual debts to a large number of people who have contributed to the development of organizational theory and research in the last decade. Most are cited in the bibliography. Some people making direct contributions to the design and execution of this research as well as to the analysis require specific mention, however. One such person is Peter Blau, now Quetlet Professor of Sociology at Columbia, who stimulated by example and suggestion the transformation of a cross-sectional study comparing organizations at one point into longitudinal research comparing organizations over time. Charles N. Halaby, now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and M. Craig Brown, now at SUNY Albany, provided substantial intellectual input into this work as graduate students (at Cornell) and as departmental colleagues (at U.C. Riverside). Brown, it should be noted, is co-author of the original version of Chapter 6. John C. Anderson of UCLA and Richard H. Hall of SUNY Albany read the manuscript with great care and provided detailed comments and suggestions for improvement.