A potential solution to a part of the philosophical and methodological problems of defining nonbureaucratic and alternative organization models is the suggestion that a clear, definitional distinction be made between nonbureaucratic models (which are developed using bureaucratic-related variables) and alternative models (which are developed using variables not attributable to a bureaucratic model.) This distinction would thus provide the possibility of developing two separate paradigms for the study of organization models that differ from the bureaucratic model. The advantage of such an approach would be greater logical clarity among concepts used under the rubric of each paradigm, a concomitant potential reduction in confusion arising from differing theoretical orientations which involve similar observational variables, and an opportunity to systematically investigate the "cash value" of each paradigm. (Author)