Managerial blunders in the kibbutz enterprise: the problem of accountability

Since the 1980s some kibbutzim reached the brink of bankruptcy, and many others suffered heavy losses as a consequence of amateur handling of their finances. Though managerial blunders threaten the very survival of its enterprise, the kibbutz has severe difficulties in coping with the problem of faulty managerial decisions. This article points to two sociological aspects of the predicament: the inhibitions of the egalitarian community in the face of "secondary adjustments' that warrant the emergence of a managerial elite and a new order of equity; and the exogenous pressures stemming from patronizing government offices that existed before 1977, were accentuated by a clumsy shift to a free market economy in Israel, with the arrival of a new government. -Author