201.09 interaction, groups and organizations

© Copyright 2010 Alan S. Berger 1
Interaction, Groups and
Organizations
From Individuals to
Bureaucracies

Types of Social Interaction
• Exchange
– This is especially important in Politics of any type
– What kids of things are exchanged?
• Cooperative
• Competitive
• Conflict
• Coercion

Components of Interaction
• Roles and Status
• Networks
• Ethnomethodology
• Exchange Theory

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.
Consequences of Size

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

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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
Group Dynamics

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

• 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.

• 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

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

201.09 interaction, groups and organizations

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