Organizations and Society Final
Terms
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- Orgs manage uncertainty by changing structures by: Increasing processing by:
- invest in more info technology, create lateral relationships between units
- Expressive individualism
- the kind of individualism "women and men practice when they seek self-fulfillment and individualized expression, growth in personal development rather than growth in material well-being"
- Orgs change structures by: reducing info needs
- through creating slack resources, creating self-contained units
- Regulatory analytic level
- entails policy, laws, and formal constraints
- Social Movement functions
- stimulate individual motivations (values and beliefs) and social-structural (networks) by framing grievances
- technical environments
- inputs and outputs
- Orgs manage uncertainty by changing their structure by: Boundary spanning
- break down divisions between departments and outside orgs
- Costs associated with compliance
- monitoring compliance has costs that do not add value to organization; minimalist orgs have few monitoring problems; Hiring managers/overseers: must increase productivity or else company losing money for manager's wages
- Hawthorne experiments
- 1. Lighting tests; 2. relay assembly room
- Analytic levels
- regulatory, normative, cognitive-cultural
- Factors affecting decision-making
- uncertainty! because of information: lack of information, wrong kind, timing
- Hawthorne effect
- Unexpected influence of factors in a study that were not hypothesized to have an effect- especially ones based on differential treatment of groups
- Cognitive-Cultural analytic level
- refers to taken-for-grantedness: things are the way they are and we don't realize it; ex. Hierarchy in a company: always a president, VP, board, etc
- Isomorphic
- adjust structure, procedures, personnel to same as other kinds of organizations- institutional rules in environment- organizations imitate each other
- Bridging strategies for organizations and institutional environments
- structural, procedural, personnel uniformity; try to manipulate outside environment
- relay assembly room test
- revealed that monetary incentives are not the only way to increase productivity; Chicago Western Industrial Plant of ATT: Elton Mayo surveyed- varied conditions- light/dark, breaks, parties, etc: productivity changes when employees watched over, taken care of- morale
- Co-optation
- include outside actors in decision making through structure-members of other companies sit n each other's executive board- interlocking board
- Expressive Individualism and Political Action
- Critics argue that an ethos of self-fulfillment necessarily weakens communal ties which in turn weaken commitment to public life in general and political activities specifically- Lichterman shows this is not so
- Vertical Integration
- one org is in charge of more things; auto plant buys dealership to sell cars, steel plant to make cars too
- Buffering strategies
- Coding, stockpiling, leveling, forecasting, changing economies of scale
- changing economies of scale
- decrease cost by making more products
- Orgs manage uncertainty by changing structures by satisficing
- routine selection of solutions- rather than just thinking about best solution to problem
- Institutions
- rules of the game; organizations are the actors and strategies of an institution
- Same solution (to solve problem)
- Do same solution as always
- Street level bureaucrats increase info processing by
- by enacting policy at interface with orgs- all decision-making spread out at ground level
- Forecasting
- predict changes through statistical models, past records
- Frame
- an "interpretive schemata that simplifies and condenses the 'world out there' by selectively punctuating and decoding objects, situations, events, experiences and sequences of actions; how the movement motivates action- creates identity
- Decoupling
- difference between actual and expected operations of organization; organization tries to protect itself from outside environment by separating what actually happens from what should
- Associations and government connections
- Allow private actors and organizations to join together- like a guild- to work toward similar desired end, watch out for each other
- Normative analytic level
- signals appropriateness; not just policies/laws- what is appropriate, what should happen, what is the norm- customs and conventions that govern activity
- lateral relationships
- decentralizing authority
- Social movements
- organized efforts to promote or resist change
- institutional environments
- rules and regulations
- create lateral relationships b/w units
- different departments share information
- Select 1st alternative (to solve problem)
- need new way to solve, select first alternative that works, instead of best one
- creating slack resources
- create extra resources, like increasing part-time workers, changing shifts; raises costs b/c excess inventory though
- Delacroix
- Dysfunctional bureaucracy- costs of getting compliance; minimalist organizations -advantages are limited to lack of hierarchical control- economize on compliance structures-people must comply or won't work- delacroix uses AA as an example
- Symbolic coding
- how organizations decide to treat inputs; rules for how products are coded from institutional environment
- Contracting
- create a contract-agreement- basic way of conducting business negotiations with external actors who provide inputs and consume outputs
- Stockpiling
- Collect a lot of raw materials to protect against gaps in supply
- Invest in more info technology
- less human error b/c more machines
- Goal of social movements
- through sharing and interpreting personal experience in a collective setting, autonomy and identity are promoted as political goals. Private grievances become public causes, and public causes resonate in personal relationships
- Joint ventures
- 2 or more companies create a new organization but keep old companies too- still maintain autonomy- 2 companies might buy trucking org to share between them
- Bridging strategies
- create bridges to environment to increase linkages through bargaining, contracting, co-optation, alliances, joint ventures, mergers, associations
- Buffering strategies for organizations and institutional environments
- Symbolic coding, decoupling, etc: barrier against outside environment
- Main differences between social movements and corporations:
- 1. utilitarian incentive system: firms are monetary, service is ideological; 2. activists vs employees; 3. members and external constituents are key; 4. firms are hierarchical; 5. Service org's effective performance is ambiguous but firms' goal attainment clear; 6. social movements have resource problems; 7. firms have higher degree of formalization
- integrity
- values and beliefs are the same as actions
- Leveling
- reduce turbulence in inputs/outputs by manipulating external environment- try to control demand through ads, etc
- Problems with decentralizing authority
- different people in authority may have different interests
- Alliances
- agreement to share info and activities with other companies- ex. airlines coordinate schedules, use same maintenance services, etc; informal understanding- no contract, normative
- Garbage can solutions to problems
- "root around in garbage" for old solutions to other problems- find an acceptable solution to current one from old
- Information
- lack of info, wrong kind, and timing all produce uncertainty; an abundance of info, right kind, good timing all reduce uncertainty
- Horizontal integration
- one company looks to have more outputs- if apply company, may look into other fruit; car dealer sells Chevy, wants to also sell Ford
- structures
- organizations create structures to manage info
- associations' goals (expressive or purposive)
- Most associations pursue member-servicing goals- expressive
- bargaining
- informs everyone in environment that the organization is about to do something that will affect others (going public, etc) - "pre-bridging"- preparing to manipulate market
- Lipsky
- increasing info processing by creating lateral relationships is a method for dealing with uncertainty; street level bureaucrats increase info processing of org by enacting policy at interface with org
- levels of uncertainty
- generate levels of risk in decision-making
- Mergers
- union of 2 firms into a single entity ex. Delta and Northwest
- lighting tests
- changed lighting, better productivity because workers appreciated being paid attention to; but, experiment failed because workers worked no matter what the conditions
- Coding
- if inputs and outputs are appropriate or not, to make sure reduce variability; don't waste any material or have bad products be outputs or inputs
- Bounded rationality
- limited rationality- can't deal with all the things have to in a decision-making process- need to spend as little time, effort, and resources as possible to solve problem
- Social movement incentives
- ideological, based on beliefs and values- charismatic leader