NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS: Organizations prohibited by law from distributing surplus
revenues to individuals.
NONCASH TRANSFERS: Transfer policies that provide goods or services, such as housing or
food, rather than money.
OFF-BUDGET POLICIES: Credit and insurance policies that do not directly show up on the
government budget; versus ON-BUDGET POLICIES in which spending and tax policies show up
directly on the government budget.
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (OMB): An important entity in the Executive
Office of the U.S. President that assists the president in assembling executive-branch budget
requests, coordinating programs, developing executive talent, and supervising program management
processes in national government agencies.
OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (OPM): A key administrative unit in the national
government operating under presidential direction; it is responsible for managing the national
government personnel system, consistent with presidential personnel policy.
OLIGARCHY: Government by the few.
OMBUDSMAN: Permanent office that receives complaints and acts on behalf of citizens to secure
information, request services, or pursue grievances.
OPEN SYSTEMS THEORY: A theory of organization that views organizations not as simple,
"closed" bureaucratic structures separate from their surroundings, but as highly complex, facing
considerable uncertainty in their operations, and constantly interacting with their environment;
assumes that organizational components will seek an "equilibrium" among the forces pressing on
them and their own responses to those forces.
OPERATING GRANTS: Grants for use in development and operation of specific programs.
ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT: A theory of organization that concentrates on increasing the
ability of an organization to solve internal problems of organizational behavior as one of its routine
functions; concerned primarily with identification and analysis of such problems.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: A theory of organization that focuses on those characteristics of
an organization that promote or hinder change; assumes that demands for change originate in the
external environment, and that the organization should be in the best position to respond to them.
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: Basic patterns of attitudes, beliefs, and values that underlie an
organization's operation.