In an examination of the private assumption of public responsibilities, the writer argues that development of the JOBS program occurred relatively smoothly, because the federal government, White House, and a segment of the business community shared a number of assumptions including a willingness to overlook the critical role played by the underemployed in the 1967 riots. In the translation of policy into action, the constraints under which a voluntary business organization operates within the policy process are analyzed with particular attention to the way in which it articulates its goals, coordinates its activities, and evaluates its performance. In the implementation of the program at the local level, Community Service and Community-Power-oriented agencies, with little influence in the planning and formulation of this policy, played critical roles in relation to its implementation. The study concludes that traditional "systems analysis" fails to take account sufficiently of sociopolitical variables, and, as a result, such evaluation deals with only part of the total system, defines the problem inadequately, and understates at least the potential of private assumption of public responsibilities in the manpower field. (NTIS)