American National Red Cross

This was prepared as the thesis required for the Master of Business
Administration degree. Very little had been written on the management
of voluntary organizations. The American Red Cross currently uses a
system termed Objectives and Goals to establish priorities of service
and periodically measure accomplishments. The problem area was whether
the fundamental concepts of management by objectives as applied to the
system used by the organization accomplished the measurement and correction
of the performance of staff through a system of control. Secondary
research concentrated on common practice and theory of the function of
control and the system of management by objectives. Current manuals and
instructions on Objectives and Goals issued by the American Red Cross
were used for comparison. It was found that this system has the basic
format of management by objectives but, as practiced, does not appear to
function as a process of control.