Groups and Formal Organizations Part II Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call society. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Stephen King, The Stand
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Groups and Formal Organizations Part II and Formal... · Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy •bureaucratization: process by which a group, organization or social movement becomes
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Groups and Formal Organizations
Part II Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a
saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call
society. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in
seven years they'll reinvent warfare.
Stephen King, The Stand
Understanding Organizations: Voluntary Association
• ...organization established on basis of common interest
• Members volunteer or even pay to participate.
• Formal organizations and voluntary organizations are not mutually exclusive.
• People join voluntary associations for a variety of purposes – for example, to share in joint activities or to get help with personal problems.
• experience high turnover
Understanding Organizations: Voluntary Association
• functions of voluntary associations:
• advance particular interests
• offer people identity
• maintain social order
• mediate between government and individuals
• help individuals climb occupational ladder
• bring people into political mainstream
• pave way for social change
Understanding Organizations: Voluntary Association
membership in voluntary associations in the US
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
• ...formal organization that uses rules and hierarchical ranking to achieve efficiency
• Weber’s characteristics of bureaucracy
• division of labor, lack of communication between units
• trained incapacity: workers so specialized they develop blind spots and fail to notice obvious problems
• hierarchy of authority
• written rules and regulations
• goal displacement: overzealous conformity to regulations (red tape)
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
• Weber’s characteristics of bureaucracy
• impersonal relationships and replaceability
• alienation: condition of estrangement or dissociation from the surrounding society
• employment based on technical qualifications, career ladders
• Peter Principle: every employee within a hierarchy tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence
• efficiency
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
Typical (Simplified) Bureaucratic Structure of a Medium-Sized University
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
• bureaucratization: process by which a group, organization or social movement becomes increasingly bureaucratic
• Bureaucracy can be understood both as a process and as a matter of degree. An organization may be more or less bureaucratic than other organizations.
• Bureaucracies tend to be self-perpetuating.
• iron law of oligarchy: describes how even a democratic organization will eventually develop into a bureaucracy ruled by a few (oligarchy) when leaders of an organization build up their power
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
• Informal structures ignore, change or bypass formal structure and rules.
• Subcultures develop when people try to humanize an impersonal organization.
• The informal culture can become exclusionary, and can undermine and redefine official policies.
• perpetuates inequality of race/ethnicity, gender, class
• Minorities are less likely to be promoted and more likely to be fired.
• Women experience negative effects of tokenism such as stress and lowered self-esteem.
Understanding Organizations: Bureaucracy
• bureaucratic dysfunctions
• risk shift
• groupthink
• ritualism
• alienation
• inefficiency
• rigidity
• resistance to change
Understanding Organizations: Alternative Forms of Organization
• humanizing the bureaucracy
• greater sharing of power and responsibility.
• encouragement of participants to share their ideas and try new approaches.
• develop rather than impede potential
• access to opportunities
• efforts to reduce the number of people in dead-end jobs and help people meet family responsibilities
• What is the cost of change?
Understanding Organizations: Alternative Forms of Organization
• Japanese structure
• Workers were (until recently) guaranteed lifetime employment after an initial probationary period.
• quality circles: small workgroups that meet regularly with managers to discuss the group’s performance and working conditions
• issue: unions (organized workers sharing either the same skill or the same employer)
• What diminished importance of organized labor unions?
• Have unions outlived usefulness in a rapidly changing global economy dominated by the service industry?
• setting: The experience of unions varies widely in different countries.
• reasons given for decline of labor unions: changes in type of industry, growth in part-time jobs, the legal system, globalization, employer offensive, union rigidity and bureaucratization
Organizations and Social Policy
• sociological insights
• To symbolic interactionists, many union employees encounter role conflict.
• Structural functionalists view unions as logical response to emergence of impersonal, large-scale, formal and often alienating organizations.
• Conflict theorists agree and point out that the longer union leaders are in office the less responsive they are to the needs and demands of the rank and file.
Organizations and Social Policy
• policy initiatives
• Major barrier to union growth exists in 28 states with so-called right to work laws.
• Debates over campaign finance reform in Congress raise question of whether labor unions should use dues to support a particular candidate or promote a political position.