Organisational Archetypes for Dutch Housing Associations

Since the Dutch government strongly reduced its control of housing associations in the 1990s, the housing associations have been developing different organisational strategies. In this paper I present a theoretical classification of organisational archetypes for housing associations, based on a distinction between prospectors and defenders, and between housing associations with a relatively strong social orientation and those with a more business-like, commercial, orientation. The four resulting organisational archetypes are worked out on the basis of their range of activities, innovations, organisational structure, available expertise (human resources), strategic management systems, and their approach towards local accountability. Furthermore, the archetypes are illustrated and tested by case studies. It is concluded that the distinction between prospectors and defenders is applicable to the housing associations, but that the distinction between social and commercial orientation is harder to apply to practice.