CHAPTER 1

The Subject Is Organizatons ;The Verb is Organizing

Presented by Aryan Azimi

The Subject Is Organizatons; The Verb is Organizing

The recurrent problem in sociology is to coceive of corporate organization, and to study it, in ways that do not anthropomorphize it and do not reduce it to behavior of individuals or human aggregates.

Guy E. Swanson (1976)

ORGANIZATION

Organizations as a social structures created by individuals to support the collaborate pursuit of specified goals

IN THIS CHAPTER, WE FIND OUT

1. The importance of organizations

2. Organizations as an area of study

3. Common and divergent interests

4. The elements of organizations

5. Defining the concept of organization

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

They are the dominant characteristic of modern societies

They do every task a society needs in order to function

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

Source of Social Ills Power Elite (Wright Mills, 1956) Changing the basis of the class structure (Ralf

Dahrendorf, 1959) Inexorable growth in the power of public-sector

organizations (Max Weber, 1968 and Robert Michels (1949)

Disenchantment of the world (Max Weber, 1946) McDonaldization of Society (Ritzer, 1993) Commercialization of human feeling in jobs (Hochschild,

1983) Increasing power of the multinational corporations

(Korten, 2001)

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

Marshall Mcluhan,1964:

Media: Any extension of ourselves

The message of any medium is the change in scale or pace or pattern that is introduces into human affairs

Organizations are the mechanisms-the media- by which those goals are pursued!

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

Organizations-as collective actors-can take actions, use resources, enter into contracts, and own property.

Called collective or juristic persons

We must come to “the recognition that the society has changed the past few centuries in the very structural elements of which it is composed”. (Coleman,1974)

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity Source of Social Ills As Media As Collective Actors Theoretical Significance

Theoretical Significance Study of organizations can contribute to basic

sociological knowledge. Some organizations reproduce existing modes of

behavior and others that serve to challenge, undermine, contradict, and transform current routine.

One cannot understand how social mobility happens in contemporary society without understanding the employment practices of organizations.

ORGANIZATIONS AS AN AREA OF STUDY Both a field of inquiry within the discipline of

sociology and recognized focus of multidisciplinary research and training.

Organization studies were founded on the “cleft rock” provided by joint consideration of technical, instrumental, rational emphases on the one hand and human, social, natural system emphases on the other.

And the story is started by MAX WEBER!

COMMON AND DIVERGENT INTERESTS Common Features Divergent Features

COMMON AND DIVERGENT INTERESTS Common Features

Divergent Features

Given that conception, all organizations confront a number of common problems: All must define their objectives; All must induce participants to contribute services; All must control and coordinate these contributions; Resources must be garnered from the environment and

products or services dispensed; Participants must be selected, trained, and replaced; And some sort of working accommodation with the neighbors

must be achieved; Some of the resources utilized by any organization must be

expanded to maintain the organization itself.

COMMON AND DIVERGENT INTERESTS Common Features Divergent Features

Diverse organization Diverse research interests and settings Diverse level of analysis

COMMON AND DIVERGENT INTERESTS Common Features Divergent Features

Diverse organization Diverse research interests and settings Diverse level of analysis

The social psychological level The organizational level The ecological level

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THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS

Formal Organization

Informal Organization

People

Work/Technology

Strategy and Goals

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

Environments are all those significant elements outside the organization that influence its ability to survive and achieve its ends

It can be seen as a store of… Porter (1980) describes the factors that make

industries more or less attractive Resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and

Salancik, 1978) Govermental bodies and the broder Cultural Milieu

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

The Choice

Miles and Snow, 1994: Three Broad Strategic Types:

Defenders Analyzers Prospectors

Porter (1980) states 3 approaches:

Low-cost Differentiation Focus

Question?

What`s different between Strategy, Goal, Objective??

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS

WORK and TECHNOLOGY:

Work describes the tasks that the organization needs to accomplish given the goals it has set for itself.

Every Organization does work and possess a technology for doing that work.

Organizations vary in the extent to which these techniques are understood, routinized, or efficacious.

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

Human resource practices

Job design

Overall organization structure

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

Informal Organization

Includes: Culture, Norms, and Values

Social networks inside and outside the organization

Power and Politics

The action of Leaders

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS Environment Strategy and Goals Work and Technology Formal Organization Informal Organization People

People All individuals participate in more than one

organization and the extent and intensiveness of their involvement may vary greatly

Several characteristics of individuals comprising an organization are relevant:

Their knowledge and skills, Their needs and preferences, Their broader background, and demographic characteristics

Founding leaders and their actions

THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS

Formal Organization

Informal Organization

People

Work/Technology

Strategy and Goals

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We will miss the essence of organization if we insist on focusing on any single feature to the exclusion of all others.

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System Definition

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System Definition

According to Barnard:

Formal organization is that kind of cooperation among men that is conscious, deliberate, purposeful. (1938)

According to March and Simon

Organizations are assemblages of interacting human beings and they are The largest assemblages in our society that have anything resembling a central coordinative system. . . . The high specificity of structure and coordination within organizations-as contrasted with the diffuse and variable relations among organizations and among unorganized marks off the individual organization as a sociological unit comparable in significance to the individual organism in biology. (1958)

And according to Blau and Scott

Since the distinctive characteristic of . . - organizations is that they have been formally established for the explicit purpose of achieving certain goals, the term "formal organizations"

is used to designate them. (1962)

A Rational System Definition:

Organizations are collectivities oriented to the pursuit of relatively specific goals and exhibiting relatively highly formalized social structures.

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System Definition

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System DefinitionOrganizations are collectivities whose participants are pursuing multiple interests, both disparate and common, but who recognize the value of perpetuating the organization as an important resource.

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System Definition

DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION A Rational System Definition A Natural System Definition An Open System Definition

Organizations are congeries of interdependent flows and activities linking shifting coalitions of participants embadded in wider material-resource and institutional environments.

Have any Question?

Thanks for your attentionAryan Azimi

SOME POINTS

A Corrective Argument; From Structure to Process

The Capacities of Organizations

SOME POINTS

A Corrective Argument; From Structure to Process

The Capacities of Organizations

Two important limitations to this approach:

1. The model tends to perpetuate the dualism that distinguishes structures from people and their actions.

2. The model is highly static, privileging elements and structures over actions and processes.

The alternative formulation by Anthony Giddens (1979)

SOME POINTS

A Corrective Argument; From Structure to Process

The Capacities of Organizations

SOME POINTS

A Corrective Argument; From Structure to Process

The Capacities of Organizations

Why organizations are much in demand as vehicle for conducting the myriad activities associated with modern social life?

SOME POINTS

A Corrective Argument; From Structure to Process

The Capacities of Organizations

Why organizations are much in demand as vehicle for conducting the myriad activities associated with modern social life?

Organizations are DURABLE Their RELIABILITY The trait of being ACCOUNTABLE