Organizations

Structures, Processes and Outcomes

Pamela S. Tolbert, Richard H. Hall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317345947
• Edition: 10
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Development
• Index: Business

Based upon classical and contemporary theory and empirical research, this text forms a sociological analysis of organizations, focusing on the impacts that organizations have upon individuals and society.

Chapter 1 Thinking About Organizations

DOI: 10.4324/9781315663388-1

Overview

This chapter has three aims. The first is to persuade you that having some general understanding of the nature of organizations is critical for members of contemporary society. Organizations dominate the landscape of our world; their activities determine crucial economic, political, and social outcomes that affect all of us, from birth to death. Thus, we argue that it behooves us to give some thought and effort to trying to understand how and why organizations operate the way they do. The second aim is to give you a sense of difficulties inherent in the quest to understand and study organizations. The phenomenon that we call organizations assumes an enormous array of forms, and variations in these forms are related to variations in the outcomes and behaviors that social scientists seek to explain. The third aim relates to the second, that is to give you an overview of the logical structure of the book—how we plan to cover the wide array of theories and research on organizations in order to give you a general sense of this area of study.

Why Study Organizations?

There are two answers to this question. The first has been emphasized so often that it has become clichéd, but is true nonetheless: we have become a society of organizations (Perrow, 1991). Because organizations are such a pervasive feature of social life, it is important to understand the factors that affect their operation. Our lives are shaped by organizations, from birth to death. Although we may be vaguely aware of this fact, we often do not give much thought to just how pervasive organizational influences are. So let’s think about this for a moment. Most of us were born in a hospital. The policies, rules, technologies, and other aspects of that organization affected how we came into the world, whether we got appropriate treatment for problems that could affect us throughout our lives, whether we survived. There may have been a brief respite from organizational influences in our early years, though organizations produce most children’s toys, books, television shows, and movies, as well as the childcare books that parents rely on for advice. The organizational decisions made about producing these things undoubtedly, though largely imperceptibly, shaped our childhood experiences and early views of the world. Many of us went to preschools where the policies of these organizations affected what we learned, our notions about proper standards of social behavior, even our general level of health. Primary, secondary, and higher education institutions are clearly critical organizations for most of us: the curriculum and teaching protocols adopted by these schools importantly affect the kinds of knowledge and ideas that we acquire, the testing practices they use often determine how we are evaluated and thus the kinds of future educational opportunities we are given, and the certifications they provide affect our work opportunities as well. The ways that work organizations shape our lives are also probably obvious. Their staffing and promotion practices affect the nature of the jobs we hold and the opportunities we are given to hold different jobs; their evaluation and compensation policies affect whether we are recognized and how we are paid for our efforts; scheduling and staffing practices strongly influence the temporal rhythms of our day-to-day lives as well as our residential movements; their rules affect how long we can and want to be employed. Throughout our lives, much of our leisure activities are shaped by products of organizations: the books we read, movies and shows we watch, the games we play, among others. Thus, many, if not most, of the leisure activities available to us are the result of decisions made by these organizations about the products that are to be provided. As we age, many of us will spend the last years of our lives in some sort of care facility; the policies and practices of these organizations will affect how comfortably we are ushered out of the world. Thus, one reason to study organizations is to get some basic understanding of these things that shape our lives in so many fundamental ways.

A second, related reason is practical. Because we live in an organizational society, if we want to change key aspects of our lives and/or society, we almost inevitably must change organizations. We may seek to change organizations because we are unhappy with the outcomes they produce. Organizations have the capacity to do great good or great evil: they are not benign objects. They can spread hate but also save lives and maybe souls. They can wage war but also bring peace. These outcomes can be intentional or unintentional, recognized or not recognized (Arum, 1996; Merton, 1957). Moreover, organizations embody and perpetuate core social values, and if you want to change those values, you must change organizations. If you wish to promote the value of social equality (by reducing the differential economic chances of men and women or of racial groups, for example), you must alter organizational practices—those of businesses, schools, health care organizations, and so forth. Likewise, if you wish to promote values that support only heterosexual relationships, you will need to affect, again, school organizations, the employment practices of work organizations (that may provide benefits to same-sex partners, for example), government organizations such as tax agencies, and so forth. The great social transformations in history have been essentially organization based. The formation and expansion of the Roman Empire, the spread of capitalism and socialism, and the rise of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic states all have been accomplished through organizations. Efforts to address toxic-waste disposal, the use of nuclear energy, unemployment, abortion, and all of the issues facing contemporary society cannot proceed without considering and understanding their organizational contexts. (Having made this point at some length, we also hasten to add that understanding a phenomenon does not necessarily imply the ability to bring about change in it. We understand how gravity works; that doesn’t mean that we can easily alter its operation.) But understanding the nature of organizations is an essential first step to trying to alter them.

Organizational Impacts

By discussing a number of levels at which the consequences of organizational activities may be observed, we want to elaborate on the issue of how organizations affect us: for individuals, communities, societies, and international communities.

Organizations and Individuals

Most analyses of the impact of organizations on individuals focus on work organizations. Although some analysts have forecasted an “end of work” (Rifkin, 1995), this has yet to take place, and work organizations still take up a large part of most people’s everyday lives. Participation in other kinds of organizations (e.g., political, social, and various voluntary organizations) can provide individuals with many possibilities for growth and development, of course. But for the moment, we will focus on organizations in which people work. Many studies have examined how individuals react to their lives as employees of organizations (Aronowitz, 1973; Hall, 1994; Rosow, 1974; Terkel, 1974; Work in America, 1973). These analyses agree that work that is highly routinized, repetitive, and dull is alienating for individuals. (There is no evidence, of course, that work in preorganizational societies was not alienating. Subsistence farming or hunting and gathering is hardly enlightening. Romanticized imageries of preorganizational systems forget that people starved and froze to death, that some were slaves, and so forth. Early industrialization, with its exceedingly low wage rates, child labor, and absence of worker protection, was also alienating, but in a truer Marxian sense than the social–psychological alienation felt by today’s worker in a routine job.) Studies of individual reactions to work also reveal that work that provides challenges, potential for advancement, and an opportunity for using creative or expressive capabilities is enjoyable and even enlightening. Thus, variations in organizational arrangements have a strong impact on individuals’ sense of engagement and satisfaction with life.

There is also evidence that work organizations affect individuals in other fundamental ways. In a series of studies, Kohn and Schooler (1978, 1982; Kohn et al., 1990) have found consistent tendencies for people who work in more bureaucratized organizations and in occupations with more autonomy to be more intellectually flexible, more open to new experiences, and more self-directed than those working in different contexts. Perhaps even more remarkably, characteristics of their work also have been shown to affect workers’ families. Those whose jobs provide them with autonomy and flexibility are more likely to encourage self-direction and self-expression in their children; those whose jobs offer less autonomy and flexibility are more likely to emphasize obedience to rules in their childcare practices. The effects of occupations may vary, to some extent, across organizations. The work of a secretary or an executive can be challenging and have potential for advancement in one organization but not in another. Some jobs allow for idiosyncratic behavior by their occupants, and others do not (Miner, 1987). Here again, organizational characteristics are critical variables as they interact with those of the occupation and the individual.

Thus far, most of the research on the impact of organizations on individuals has been based on studies of full-time, permanent workers. There is, however, a growing trend toward part-time and nonpermanent work. In 1988, for example, one-fourth of all U.S. workers were part-time or nonpermanent workers (Davis-Blake and Uzzi, 1993)—that is, temporary workers, leased workers, or independent contractors. By the late 1990s, some estimates indicated that nearly a third of all workers fell into this category (Barley and Kunda, 2004). The temporary help industry employment level grew from 184,000 in 1970 to 1.5 million in 1993 (Tilly and Tilly, 1998:152). This form of employment typically offers low pay and few benefits. Few studies have examined the impact of these changes in work organizations on the workers themselves. Barley and Kunda’s (2004) pathbreaking ethnographic research on technical contractors in the computer industry (programmers, systems technicians, and others) illuminates key aspects of this form of work. Although many of the contractors they studied enjoyed the autonomy, independence, and, often, very high pay that went along with their status as short-term experts brought in to troubleshoot organizational problems, most found their marginality within the organization that employed them psychologically difficult.

Contractors knew that no matter how appreciated, accepted, and integrated they became, they were still outsiders. Firms repeatedly drove this fact home in countless symbolic ways, from the color of the contractors’ badges to the size and location of their office space. For some, the sense of being a second-class citizen was a constant source of anxiety, dissatisfaction, and irritation. Others took it in stride, or even found the distance that it created comforting. But one way or another, all contractors had to learn to live with their liminality. To do so, they carved out roles for themselves, ranging from “gurus” and “trusted confidants” to “hired guns” and “warm bodies” purchased solely for their “skill sets.” These roles allowed contractors to rationalize their status and resolve the practical dilemmas of life on the job. Ultimately, however, their status as outsiders was more than a symbolic issue: all contractors knew that sooner or later they would have to return to the market in search of another job. (Barley and Kunda, 2004:288)

Another growing trend is home-based work, or telecommuting, in which people work from their homes and use electronic communications to link with their employers (Lozano, 1989). Clerical work can be done this way, as can the work of some professionals such as editors and professors. Home workers see themselves as having more freedom than their office-bound counterparts, and such arrangements can allow them to deal more effectively with the integration of work and family life (Hornug, Rosseau, and Glaser, 2008). On the other hand, some work suggests that the lack of regular contact with colleagues and bosses often reduces individuals’ sense of identification with the organization and leaves them feeling isolated (Thatcher and Zhu, 2006). That these perceptions may have some validity is suggested by research showing that women who took advantage of flexible work hours and working at home were less apt than those who did not to see wage growth (Glass, 2004). Of course, the individual impact of such arrangements may depend on a variety of other characteristics of the organizations. Organizations vary in their ability to adopt flexible work systems, based on their age and size, their existing labor–management relationships, and their existing work process arrangements (Uzzi and Barsness, 1998). These other characteristics may mediate the way in which flexible work systems are used as well as the way organizations respond to employees who use these systems.

The psychological impacts of organizations on individuals are clearly important, but the most visible and perhaps the most important impacts are those involving individuals’ placement and opportunities for advancement within an organization and thus their economic outcomes. Organizational norms and practices define what characteristics of individuals are valued and rewarded (Reskin, 2003). These characteristics may include educational attainment, work experience, length of tenure in an organization, and other characteristics that sociologists refer to as “achieved” (because it is possible for individuals to change them by dint of their efforts and choices). Most economic theories of how organizations affect the economic outcomes of individuals focus on these sorts of characteristics. Organizations may also implicitly or explicitly use demographic characteristics of individuals, such as age, sex, and race, as a basis for selecting, evaluating, and assigning rewards. Sociologists refer to these characteristics as “ascriptive” because they are essentially fixed by birth. Because these characteristics are often assigned different status and social meanings within the larger society, and thus, individuals possessing them are accorded greater or lesser value, they may affect the kinds of rewards and opportunities individuals receive in organizations (Berger, Ridgeway, and Zelditch, 2002; Ridgeway and Correll, 2006). Organizations’ use of such characteristics in this way has, in recent decades, been challenged and in most cases ruled as illegal. (It is important to remember, however, that laws forbidding discrimination are indeed a relatively recent phenomenon. For example, “No Irish Need Apply” was frequently seen on signs outside some business firms at the height of Irish immigration to the United States, around the turn of the century. Up through the 1960s, employment advertisements in newspapers were typically divided into two columns: one containing job listings for men and the other for women. In the 1960s, female teachers were routinely assigned salaries that were three-quarters of those received by their male counterparts, because the latter were assumed to be breadwinners whereas the former were not.)

Because organizational policies and practices affect the economic outcomes of individuals, organizations are key components of the system of social stratification; we will discuss this in more detail below. At this point, though, we want to underscore that the impact of these policies and practices is experienced directly by individuals and has consequences for individuals’ career choices and outcomes. Figure 1–1 provides a general model that portrays processes that shape individuals’ careers (Lawrence and Tolbert, 2007).

Figure 1–1 Organizational Influences on Individuals' Career Choices and Outcomes Source: Barbara S. Lawrence and Pamela S. Tolbert, “Organizational Demography and Individ...