The managerial perspective could have been called the “elite” or the “bureaucratic” perspective, alternate emphases within the perspective. The term “managerial” emphasizes the organizational base of elites and their control of the state. The strategic activities of elites are stressed, rather than static entities, such as a bureaucracy or an elite structure.

The managerial home domain

The managerial home domain contains organizational structures that have different resources for domination of each other and of the society. The state is first and foremost the dominant organization of society. Elites compete for control of their environment, propelled by the organizational requirement of reducing external uncertainty. Conflicts between them can be understood without resorting to the societal-level concepts of contradiction or differentiation. Society is conceived either as an uncertain interorganizational power structure shaped by the history of elite strategies, the political version, or as itself an organization writ large, the functional version.

Which structures are dominant depends on the success of different elite strategies of controlling organizations and shaping the activities of members, clients, opponents, and supporters. These organizations are the instruments of dominant elites, not natural systems whose members have a common interest in their survival (Scott 1981). An organization's internal structure is determined by strategies of control, utilizing available technology and extracting resources from other organizations in the environment. Organizational goals include the survival of the organization. Varieties of bureaucratic structure are also closely related to their interorganizational relations.