1. Interaction, Groups and Organizations
From Individuals to
Bureaucracies
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

2. Types of Social Interaction
Exchange
This is especially important in Politics of any type
What kids of things are exchanged?
Cooperative
Competitive
Conflict
Coercion
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3. Components of Interaction
Roles and Status
Networks
Ethnomethodology
Exchange Theory
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

4. © Copyright 2010 Alan S. Berger
Types of Groups
A primary group is a small social group whose members share personal and enduring relationships.
People in primary groups share many activities, spend a great deal of time together, and feel they know one another well.
Families are primary groups in that they are the first groups we experience in life and because they are of central importance in the socialization process.
Members think of the group as an end in itself rather than as a means to other ends.
Members view each other as unique and irreplaceable.
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Types of Groups
Secondary groups are large and impersonal social groups devoted to some specific interest or activity.
They involve weak emotional ties.
They are commonly short term.
They are goal oriented.
They are typically impersonal.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

6. Types of Group Leadership
Instrumental leadership emphasizes the completion of tasks;
Expressive leadership emphasizes collective well-being.
Decision making: There are three styles of decision making in groups:
Authoritarian leadership focuses on instrumental concerns, takes personal charge of decision-making, and demands strict compliance from subordinates.
Democratic leadership is more expressive and tries to include everyone in the decision making process.
Laissez-faire leadership allows the group to function more or less on its own.
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Reference Groups
A reference group is a social group that serves as a point of reference for people making evaluations or decisions.
Group conformity.
Asch’s research into group conformity showed that many of us are willing to compromise our own judgment and to avoid being different, even from people we do not know.
Milgram’s research into obedience suggests that people are likely to follow directions from not only “legitimate authority figures,” even when it means inflicting harm on another person.
Janis’s research into groupthink, the tendency of group members to conform by adopting a narrow view of some issue.
Stouffer’s research on reference group dynamics showed that we do not make judgments about ourselves in isolation, nor do we compare ourselves with just anyone.
This section needs to be expanded. Talk more about Stouffer’s research on the Army
An in-group is a social group commanding a member’s esteem and loyalty; an out-group is a social group toward which one feels competition or opposition.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

8. Group Characteristics
An in-group is a social group commanding a member’s esteem and loyalty;
An out-group is a social group toward which one feels competition or opposition.
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Consequences of Size
Increasing size of a group leads to the following
Social diversity influences intergroup contact in four ways:
But note that large groups even though diverse overall develop homogeneous subsets
The larger a group, the more likely members will maintain relationships only with other group members.
The more internally heterogeneous a group is, the more likely that its members will interact with outsiders.
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Consequences of Size
The greater the overall social parity within a setting, the more likely it is that people from diverse backgrounds will mingle and form ties.
Physical space affects the chances of contacts among groups.
Immigrants starting a business
Think about the relationship between group size and resources
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Networks
A network is a web of social ties.
What is the “old boys club”
6 degrees of separation
Note that 240 of the 300 letters sent were not received.
Internet: A Global Network. From one vast network, a host of social groups are emerging.
Access to the Internet in Global Perspective. Although a majority of world nations are connected to the Internet, a majority of the world’s people do not have access to this resource.
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Formal Organizations
Formal organizations are large, secondary groups that are organized to achieve goals efficiently.
Formal organizations are groups that are created deliberately to achieve specific goals.
Formal organizations can be voluntary, coercive, and utilitarian.
Small organizations can often function reasonably well on the basis of personal interaction, but larger organizations must establish formal operating and administrative procedures, this need leads to bureaucracy.
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Formal Organizations
Max Weber approached bureaucracy as an ideal type and defined its characteristics:
a hierarchy of authority,
a system of rules, specific
qualifications for office,
no ownership of positions,
a career orientation,
written documentation.
Bureaucracies have disadvantages and limitations,
including trained incapacity,
Parkinson’s law
the iron law of oligarchy.
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Formal Organizations
Formal organizations also have an informal organization.
Both the conflict and the interactionist perspective have been applied toward understanding formal organization.
There are various programs that have been aimed at making large organizations more humane
employee participation
Flextime
small work groups
employee ownership.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

15. Types of Formal Organizations
There are three types of formal organizations:
Utilitarian organizations, which people join in pursuit of material rewards.
Coercive organizations, distinguished by involuntary membership.
Normative organizations or voluntary associations, in which people pursue goals they consider morally worthwhile.
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Group Dynamics
The size of a group influences the nature of our interaction.
Emotions and feelings tend to assume a larger part in dyads in comparison with larger groups.
Enlarging a group – for example, creating a triad – fundamentally alters a social situation.
In group settings, leaders typically emerge, with two primary types of leadership roles
task
socio-emotional.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

17. Group Dynamics- Leaders & Members
Leadership styles
Authoritarian leadership focuses on instrumental concerns, takes personal charge of decision-making, and demands strict compliance from subordinates.
Democratic leadership is more expressive and tries to include everyone in the decision making process.
Laissez-faire leadership allows the group to function more or less on its own.
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Group Dynamics
When individuals work in groups, they work less hard than they do when working individually
this process is termed social loafing.
A social dilemma is a situation in which members of a group are faced with a conflict between maximizing their personal interests and maximizing the collective welfare.
Group members may share an illusion of invulnerability that leads to overconfidence and a greater willingness to take risks – this reflects the process known as groupthink.
Groups produce powerful pressures toward conformity, and people are often unaware of these pressures
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Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy became common during the Industrial Revolution.
Bureaucracy is an organizational model rationally designed to perform tasks efficiently.
Max Weber identified six key characteristics of bureaucracy:
Specialization.
Hierarchy of offices.
Rules and regulations.
Technical competence.
Impersonality.
Formal, written communications.
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Bureaucracy
Organizational environment : a range of factors outside the organization that affects its operation, including:
technology.
economic and political trends.
population patterns.
other organizations.
The informal side of bureaucracy is that members of organizations try to personalize their procedures and surroundings.
Problems of bureaucracy.
Bureaucratic alienation, according to Weber, is the reduction of the human being to a “small cog in a ceaselessly moving mechanism.”
Bureaucratic ritualism is the preoccupation with rules and regulations to the point of thwarting an organization’s goals.
Bureaucratic inertia is the tendency of bureaucratic organizations to perpetuate themselves.
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Bureaucracy
Robert Michels made the link between bureaucracy and oligarchy, the rule of the many by the few. The “iron law of oligarchy” refers to the pyramid shape of bureaucracy placing a few leaders in charge of organizational resources.
Questions to answer:
Where do private clubs that discriminate fit into the sociological analysis of types of organizations?
What type of Moral authority over their members do the various types of groups have? Moral as in setting the normative standards.
Describe the business school management theory that “a good manager can manage anything” but knows only management skills not the content of what is being managed.
Can a teacher be a good teacher without knowledge of her/his subject and can someone who only knows the subject but nothing about teaching be a good teacher?
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22. © Copyright 2010 Alan S. Berger
Bureaucracy
Describe the business school management theory that “a good manager can manage anything” but knows only management skills not the content of what is being managed.
Can a teacher be a good teacher without knowledge of her/his subject
can someone who only knows the subject but nothing about teaching be a good teacher?
Humanizing Bureaucracies
Alternative Work Schedules
Employee Participation
Virtual Offices
Specialized Benefits
Employee Stock Ownership Plans
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

23. The Evolution of Formal Organizations
Scientific management is the application of scientific principles to the operation of a business or other large organization.
Scientific management involves three steps:
Managers observe the tasks performed by the workers.
Managers analyze their data to discover ways for workers to become more efficient.
Management provides guidance and incentives to workers to be more efficient.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

24. The Evolution of Formal Organizations
During the 1960s, big businesses were inefficient and unfair in their hiring practices.
By the end of the twentieth century, white men in the United States held 58 percent of management jobs.
Women bring a “female advantage” to companies striving to be more flexible and democratic.
Differences between formal organizations in Japan and in the United States:
Hiring and advancement.
Lifetime security.
Holistic involvement.
Broad-based training.
Collective decision making.
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

25. The Evolution of Formal Organizations
Pressure to modify conventional organizations is coming from the nature of work itself, including a shift from making things to processing information.
Ways in which today’s organizations differ from those of a century ago:
Creative autonomy
Competitive work teams.
A flatter organization.
Greater flexibility.
The “McDonaldization” of society.
Four principles of McDonaldization:
Efficiency.
Calculability.
Uniformity and predictability.
Control through automation.
Rationality, although efficient, may be irrational and highly dehumanizing
© Copyright Alan S. Berger

26. The Future of Organizations: Opposing Trends
“Intelligent organizations” have become more productive than ever.
The postindustrial economy has created many highly skilled jobs, more routine service jobs, and offers few of the benefits that today’s highly skilled workers enjoy.
Organizational “flexibility” that gives better-off workers more autonomy carries the threat of “downsizing” for rank-and-file employees.
Computer Technology, Large Organizations, and the Assault on Privacy
© Copyright Alan S. Berger