Class #15, September 29 Classnotes
Luhman, Ch 6, part 3: Formal Organizations

Terms
formal organization
bureaucracy
rational/legal
alienation
normative
utilitarian
hierarchy of authority
organizational set

1. Social differentiation and the organizational society
1. Two ways of looking at society
   1. As a continuous social system where we view all social relationships as interconnected
   2. As a collection of pieces with their own cultures, structures, boundaries, and life shaping patterns
2. In a real way, ours is a society of organizations each of which is semi-separate from the rest of society
   1. Outside of our families, most of the significant commitments we make in life happen with respect to organizations and we often are inattentive to the "space" between those organizations
   2. This especially describes upper middle class and upper class life since less wealthy people have trouble being hired or accepted into powerful formal organizations.
3. Formal organizations are defined as
   1. They are human inventions rather than structures we inherit (like families or communities or ethnic groups)
   2. They are bounded
      1. generally because an individual or a board of directors legally owns them
      2. They also have a culture and an internal world that makes them compelling to members and disconnected from the outside
   3. They have a structure of governance which often his hierarchical with a small group in charge although there may be some principle for electing that group from the body
   4. Bureaucracies are based on written rules, clearly defined division of labor, and appointment to offices based on objective skills, experience, and appropriateness for the job
      1. Max Weber developed the idea of bureaucracy to explain what makes modern economic production efficient
      2. Societies, authority, and economics in earlier history had been organized in more arbitrary ways
         1. based on inherited status, the aristocratic style or the divine right of kings
         2. based on personal influence and charisma of leaders which fell apart once they died
      3. Bureaucracy was impersonal, rational, and measured in terms of how one could arrange tasks and relationships to make the most money at the lowest cost---it's a theory of economics
      4. Weber's theory and the way it draws on sociological ideas about the social psychology of groups forms the basis of management theories of how to organize firms.
   5. However, we also think of bureaucracies in terms of red tape and petty domination
      1. organizations and the people working in them seem to want to protect, preserve, and expand their domain whether or not this makes things more efficient and effective
      2. people who hold positions of organizational authority seem to like to throw their weight around and often are not affected by reasoned arguments
      3. many of us are placed in lower levels of organizations where we are forced to accept a bunch of rules we did not help to create, do not understand, and do not really accept.
4. Supposing we talked about Bucknell in this way, what could we say about why it makes sense to see Bucknell as a self-contained world?
   1. For students, its total institution qualities---you live and eat here, you relate to the same people day after day, there are processes aimed at tearing down and reconstructing your sense of self
   2. For staff, we move here from other places, we work in one place for years and the goals, priorities, and norms of the institution shape the way we work and view the world
   3. Bucknell is a self-contained corporation with a legal and formal hierarchy
   4. Bucknell has produced an organizational culture that is different from other colleges and includes a large, loyal alumni community who come back and support the place.
   5. Bucknell is sharply separate from the local community physically, in terms of social class, in terms of how laws are enforced, and in terms of how we think about and relate to the world (as intellectuals, professionals, and upwardly mobile upscale people)