What does “organization” mean?

“Organization” refers to something patterned and planned. Social organization means that some ordering and predictability exists in people’s interactions, ideas, symbols, feelings, etc. A school, bar or jury illustrate principles of social organization.

What is being organized?

Norms or the rules for behavior

Values or the things considered important

Beliefs or Ideas

Communication Power and

authority Relationships or

types of exchanges with others

Symbols

2 types of organizations

Informal: people spontaneously create the rules, roles and relations (the 3 R’s) that govern their lives. They also may change them freely.

Formal: the 3 R’s (rules, roles, relations) are pre-arranged, pre-defined, pre-structured by others with official power in the group. Hard to change.

A picture of organization

Would you say that this grouping is informal or formal? Why?

What kinds of groups are informal?

Families, cliques, friendship groups, neighbors, lovers, gangs, close work colleagues, bowling buddies, best friends, the Friday poker group, the weekly four-some golfers, a village clan, extended family members, a cult or terrorist group, the local mob….

Why Weber Worried

In our course we will explore the “disenchantment of the world” that Max Weber warned about as he saw the decline in importance and power of informal groups and the rise of increasingly large and more formal groups in society.