What happens in a merger? Experiences of the state department for water resources in Khorezm, Uzbekistan

The paper focuses on the organisational problems of the state Department of Water Resources at the district level in the Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan. The study opens the organisational 'black box' and looks inside the organisational structure of the Department of Water Resources. The analysis goes beyond the current studies and reports focusing on the duties of the organisation, by analysing the logistical capabilities and the constraining factors due to the organisational structure after the merger in 1997 between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Melioration and Water Management. The paper utilises organisational theory approaches to power for analysing the state Department of Water Resources. Even though the merger between the two Ministries was supposed to create two equally important departments within one Ministry, the analysis shows that the Department of Water Resources got submerged into the organisation. The water department lost its old organisational objective of distributing water 'equitably' to agricultural water users. The dominant objective of the whole organisation became the old objective of the agricultural department, namely fulfilling the target of the state order. In addition, the ability of the water resource department to manage and to control water resources was reduced during the merger. The merger reduced not only the resource power of the water department, but also its process power. The collected data shows that the decisions on water distribution were strongly influenced by the agricultural department and the governors of the districts. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.