c hapter five Groups and Organizationsmyresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/SOC120R3/soc120... ·...

c h a p t e r f i v e

Groups and Organizations

How do groups affect the behavior of members?

Why can “who you know” be as important as “what you know”?

In what ways have large business organizations changed in recent decades?

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Society: The Basics, Eighth Edition by John J. Macionis. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc.

We carry out much of our daily lives as members of groups and organizations. The Canadian synchronized swimming team spends long hours together training for the Olympics.

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110 chapter 5 groups and organizations

Back in 1948, people in Pasadena, California, paid little atten-

tion to the opening of a new restaurant by brothers Maurice

and Richard McDonald. Yet this one small business would not

only transform the restaurant industry but also introduce a new orga-

nizational model copied by countless businesses of all kinds.

The McDonald brothers’ basic concept, which was soon called “fast food,” was to serve

meals quickly and cheaply to large numbers of people. The brothers trained employees to do highly

specialized jobs: One person grilled hamburgers while others “dressed” them, made French fries,

whipped up milkshakes, and handed the food to the customers in assembly-line fashion.

As the years went by, the McDonald brothers prospered, and they decided to move their

restaurant to San Bernardino. It was there, in 1954, that Ray Kroc, a traveling blender and mixer

salesman, paid them a visit.

Kroc was fascinated by the efficiency of the brothers’ system and saw the potential for a

whole chain of fast-food restaurants. The three launched the plan as partners. Soon Kroc bought

out the McDonalds (who went back to running their original restaurant) and went on to become

one of the greatest success stories of all time. More than 30,000 McDonald’s restaurants now

serve almost 50 million people every day throughout the United States and in 118 nations around

the world.

The success of McDonald’s represents more than thepopularity of hamburgers and French fries. The organiza-tional principles that guide this company are coming todominate social life in the United States and elsewhere.

We begin this chapter with an examination of socialgroups, the clusters of people with whom we interact in ourdaily lives. As you will learn, the scope of group lifeexpanded greatly during the twentieth century. From aworld of families, local neighborhoods, and small busi-nesses, our society now turns on the operation of huge busi-nesses and other bureaucracies that sociologists describe asformal organizations. Understanding this expansion ofsocial life and appreciating what it means for us as individ-uals are the main objectives of this chapter.

Social GroupsAlmost everyone wants a sense of belonging, which is theessence of group life. A social group is two or more people whoidentify and interact with one another. Human beings cometogether as couples, families, circles of friends, churches,clubs, businesses, neighborhoods, and large organizations.

Whatever the form, groups contain people with shared expe-riences, loyalties, and interests. While keeping their individu-ality, members of social groups also think of themselves as aspecial “we.”

Not every collection of individuals forms a group. Peo-ple with a status in common, such as women, homeowners,soldiers, millionaires, college graduates, and RomanCatholics, are not a group but a category. They know thatothers hold the same status, but most are strangers to oneanother. Similarly, students sitting in a large lecture hallinteract to a very limited extent. Such a loosely formed col-lection of people is a crowd rather than a group.

However, the right circumstances can quickly turn acrowd into a group. Events from power failures to terroristattacks can make people bond quickly with strangers.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY GROUPSFriends often greet one another with a smile and the simplephrase “Hi! How are you?” The response usually is, “Fine,thanks. How about you?” This answer is often more scriptedthan truthful. Explaining how you really are doing mightmake people feel so awkward that they would beat a hastyretreat.

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groups and organizations chapter 5 111

As human beings, we live our lives asmembers of groups. Such groups may belarge or small, temporary or long-lasting,and can be based on kinship, culturalheritage, or some shared interest.

Social groups fall into one of two types, based on theirmembers’ degree of genuine personal concern for one another. According to Charles Horton Cooley

(1864–1929), a primarygroup is a small socialgroup whose members

share personal and lasting relationships. Joined by primaryrelationships, people spend a great deal of time together,engage in a wide range of activities, and feel that theyknow one another pretty well. In short, they show realconcern for one another. The family is every society’s mostimportant primary group.

Cooley called personal and tightly integrated groups“primary” because they are among the first groups we expe-rience in life. In addition, family and friends have primaryimportance in the socialization process, shaping our atti-tudes, behavior, and social identity.

Members of primary groups help one another in manyways, but they generally think of their group as an end initself rather than as a means to other ends. In other words,we tend to think that family and friendship link people who“belong together.” Members of a primary group also tend toview each other as unique and irreplaceable. Especially inthe family, we are bound to others by emotion and loyalty.Brothers and sisters may not always get along, but theyalways remain siblings.

In contrast to the primary group, the secondary groupis a large and impersonal social group whose members pursuea specific goal or activity. In most respects, secondary groupshave characteristics precisely opposite to those of primary

groups. Secondary relationships involve weak emotional tiesand little personal knowledge of one another. Many second-ary groups exist for only a short time, beginning and end-ing with no particular significance. Students in a collegecourse, who may or may not see one another after thesemester ends, are one example of a secondary group.

Secondary groups include many more people thanprimary groups. For example, dozens or even hundreds of people may work in the same company, yet most ofthem pay only passing attention to one another. Some-times the passage of time transforms a group from sec-ondary to primary, as with co-workers who share an officefor many years and develop closer relationships. But gen-erally, members of a secondary group do not think ofthemselves as “we.” Secondary ties need not be hostile orcold, of course. Interactions among students, co-workers,and business associates are often quite pleasant even ifthey are impersonal.

Unlike members of primary groups, who display apersonal orientation, people in secondary groups have a goalorientation. Whereas primary group members define eachother according to who they are in terms of family ties orpersonal qualities, people in secondary groups look to oneanother for what they are, that is, what they can do for eachother. In secondary groups, we tend to “keep score,” awareof what we give others and what we receive in return. Thisgoal orientation means that secondary group members usu-ally remain formal and polite. It is in a secondary relation-ship, therefore, that we ask the question “How are you?”without expecting a truthful answer.

To learn more about Cooley, seethe Gallery of Sociologists athttp://www.TheSociologyPage.com


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SUMMING UPPrimary Groups and Secondary Groups

Primary Group Secondary Group

Quality of relationships Personal orientation Goal orientation

Duration of relationships Usually long-term Variable; often short-term

Breadth of relationships Broad; usually involving many activities Narrow; usually involving few activities

Perception of relationships As ends in themselves As means to an end

Examples Families, circles of friends Co-workers, political organizations

The Summing Up table reviews the characteristics ofprimary and secondary groups. Keep in mind that these traitsdefine two ideal types of groups; most real groups containelements of both. But placing these concepts at opposite endsof a continuum helps us describe and analyze group life.

Many people think that small towns and rural areasemphasize primary relationships and that large cities arecharacterized by secondary ties. This generalization holdssome truth, but some urban neighborhoods, especiallythose populated by people of a single ethnic or religious cat-egory, can be very tightly knit.

GROUP LEADERSHIPHow do groups operate? One important element of groupdynamics is leadership. Although a small circle of friendsmay have no leader at all, most large secondary groups placeleaders in a formal chain of command.

Instrumental and expressive leaders. Groups typicallybenefit from two kinds of leadership. Instrumental leader-ship refers to group leadership that focuses on the completionof tasks. Members look to instrumental leaders to get thingsdone. Expressive leadership, by contrast, is group leadershipthat focuses on the group’s well-being. Expressive leaders takeless of an interest in achieving goals than in promoting thewell-being of members and minimizing tension and con-flict among members.

Because they concentrate on performance, instrumentalleaders usually have formal, secondary relationships withother members. These leaders give orders and reward orpunish people according to how much they contribute to thegroup’s efforts. Expressive leaders build more personal, pri-mary ties. They offer sympathy to members going through

tough times, keep the group united, and lighten seriousmoments with humor. Whereas successful instrumentalleaders enjoy more respect from members, expressive leadersgenerally receive more personal affection.

In the traditional North American family, the two typesof leadership are linked to gender. Historically, culturalnorms gave instrumental leadership to men who, as fathersand husbands, assumed primary responsibility for earningincome and making major family decisions. Traditionally,women exercised expressive leadership: As mothers andwives, they encouraged supportive and peaceful relation-ships between family members. One result of this divisionof labor was that many children had greater respect for theirfathers but closer personal ties with their mothers (Parsons& Bales, 1955; Macionis, 1978a).

Greater equality between men and women has blendedthe gender-based distinction between instrumental and ex-pressive leadership. In most group settings, women and mennow take on both leadership roles.

Leadership styles. Sociologists also describe leadership interms of its decision-making style. Authoritarian leadershipfocuses on instrumental concerns, takes personal charge ofdecision making, and demands that group members obeyorders. Although this leadership style may win little affec-tion from the group, a fast-acting authoritarian leader isappreciated in a crisis.

Democratic leadership is more expressive, making apoint of including everyone in the decision-making process.Although less successful in a crisis situation, where there islittle time for discussion, democratic leaders generally drawon the ideas of all members to develop creative solutions toproblems.


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A B C

Card 2Card 1

FIGURE 5–1 Cards Used in Asch’s Experiment in Group Conformity

Source: Asch (1952).

Laissez-faire leadership (a French phrase meaning roughly“to leave alone”) allows the group to function more or less onits own. This style typically is the least effective in promotinggroup goals (White & Lippitt, 1953; Ridgeway, 1983).

GROUP CONFORMITYGroups influence the behavior of their members, often pro-moting conformity. “Fitting in” provides a secure feeling ofbelonging, but at the extreme, group pressure can beunpleasant and even dangerous. Interestingly, as experi-ments by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram showed, evenstrangers can encourage conformity.

Asch’s research. Asch (1952) recruited students suppos-edly to study visual perception. Before the experimentbegan, he explained to all but one member of a small groupthat their real purpose was to put pressure on the remain-ing person. Placing six to eight students around a table,Asch showed them a “standard” line, as drawn on Card 1 inFigure 5–1, and asked them to match it to one of the threelines on Card 2.

Anyone with normal vision can see that the linemarked “A” on Card 2 is the correct choice. Initially, asplanned, everyone made the correct matches. But thenAsch’s accomplices began answering incorrectly, leaving thenaive subject (seated at the table so as to answer next to last)bewildered and uncomfortable.

What happened? Asch found that one-third of all sub-jects chose to conform by answering incorrectly. Appar-ently, many of us are willing to compromise our ownjudgment to avoid the discomfort of being different, evenfrom people we do not know.

Milgram’s research. Stanley Milgram, a former student ofSolomon Asch’s, conducted conformity experiments of hisown. In Milgram’s controversial study (Milgram, 1963,1965; Miller, 1986), a researcher explained to male recruitsthat they would be taking part in a study of how punish-ment affects learning. One by one, he assigned them to therole of teacher and placed another person—actually anaccomplice of Milgram’s—in a connecting room to pose asa learner.

The teacher watched the learner sit down in a contrap-tion resembling an electric chair. As the teacher looked on,the researcher applied electrode paste to the learner’s wrist,explaining that this would “prevent blisters and burns.” Theresearcher then attached an electrode to the learner’s wristand fastened the leather straps, explaining that they would“prevent excessive movement while the learner was beingshocked.” Although the shocks would be painful, the

researcher reassured the teacher, they would cause “no per-manent tissue damage.”

The researcher then led the teacher back into theadjoining room, pointing out that the “electric chair”was connected to a “shock generator,” actually a phony butrealistic-looking piece of equipment with a label that read“Shock Generator, Type ZLB, Dyson Instrument Company,Waltham, Mass.” On the front was a dial that supposedlyregulated electric current from 15 volts (labeled “SlightShock”) to 300 volts (“Intense Shock”) to 450 volts (“Dan-ger: Severe Shock”).

Seated in front of the “shock generator,” the teacher wastold to read aloud pairs of words. Then the teacher was torepeat the first word of each pair and wait for the learner torecall the second word. Whenever the learner failed to answercorrectly, the teacher was told to apply an electric shock.

The researcher directed the teacher to begin at the low-est level (15 volts) and to increase the shock by another15 volts every time the learner made a mistake. And so theteacher did. At 75, 90, and 105 volts, the teacher heardmoans from the learner; at 120 volts, shouts of pain; by270 volts, screams; at 315 volts, pounding on the wall; afterthat, deadly silence. None of the forty subjects assigned tothe role of teacher during the initial research even ques-tioned the procedure before reaching 300 volts, and twenty-six of the subjects—almost two-thirds—went all the way to450 volts. Even Milgram was surprised at how readily peo-ple obeyed authority figures.

Milgram (1964) then modified his research to seewhether Solomon Asch had documented such a high degreeof group conformity only because the task—matchinglines—was a trivial one. What if groups could also pressurepeople to administer electrical shocks?


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We form attitudes and plan our actions imagining how others willrespond to us. Often, researchers have found, people in specificgroups—called reference groups—have special importance to us.Reference groups may be groups we are already a member of orgroups we would like to accept us.

This time, Milgram formed a group of three teachers,two of whom were his accomplices. Each of the teachers wasto suggest a shock level when the learner made an error; therule was that the group would then administer the lowest ofthe three suggested levels. This arrangement gave the naivesubject the power to deliver a lesser shock regardless of whatthe others proposed.

The accomplices suggested increasing the shock levelwith each error, putting pressure on the subject to do thesame. The subjects in these groups applied voltages three tofour times higher than other subjects acting alone. Thus,Milgram’s research suggests that people are surprisinglylikely to follow the directions not only of legitimate author-ity figures but also of groups of ordinary individuals, evenwhen it means harming another person.

Janis’s research. Experts also cave in to group pressure,says Irving L. Janis (1972, 1989). Janis argues that a numberof U.S. foreign policy blunders, including the failure to fore-see the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War IIand our ill-fated involvement in the Vietnam War, resulted

from group conformity among our highest-ranking politicalleaders.

Common sense tells us that group discussion improvesdecision making. Janis counters that group members oftenseek agreement that closes off other points of view. Janiscalled this process groupthink, the tendency of group mem-bers to conform, resulting in a narrow view of some issue.

A classic example of groupthink resulted in the disas-trous 1961 invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Lookingback, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., an adviser to PresidentKennedy, confessed feeling guilty “for having kept so quietduring those crucial discussions in the Cabinet Room,”adding that the group discouraged anyone from challengingwhat, in hindsight, Schlesinger considered “nonsense”(quoted in Janis, 1972:30, 40). It may be that groupthinkwas also at work in 2003 when U.S. leaders went to warassuming that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of massdestruction.

REFERENCE GROUPSHow do we assess our own attitudes and behavior? Often weuse a reference group, a social group that serves as a point ofreference in making evaluations and decisions.

A young man who imagines his family’s reaction to awoman he is dating is using his family as a reference group.A supervisor who tries to predict her employees’ reaction toa new vacation policy is using them in the same way. Asthese examples suggest, reference groups can be primary orsecondary. In either case, our need to conform shows howothers’ attitudes affect us.

We also use groups we do not belong to for reference.Being well prepared for a job interview means showing updressed the way people in that company dress for work.Conforming to groups we do not belong to is a strategy towin acceptance and illustrates the process of anticipatorysocialization, discussed in Chapter 3 (“Socialization: FromInfancy to Old Age”).

Stouffer’s research. Samuel A. Stouffer and his colleaguesconducted a classic study of reference groups during WorldWar II. Researchers asked soldiers to rate their own, or anycompetent soldier’s, chances of promotion in their branch ofthe Army. One might guess that soldiers serving in outfitswith high promotion rates would be optimistic aboutadvancement. Yet Stouffer’s research pointed to the oppositeconclusion: Soldiers in Army units with low promotion rateswere actually more positive about their chances to moveahead (Stouffer et al., 1949).

The key to understanding Stouffer’s results lies in thegroups against which soldiers measured themselves. Those


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A

B C

ED

Five people(ten relationships)

D

A

B C

Four people(six relationships)

A

B C

Three people(three relationships)

A B

Two people(one relationship)

A

B C

ED

F

Six people(fifteen relationships)

A

B C

E

F G

Seven people(twenty-one relationships)

D

FIGURE 5–2 Group Size and Relationships

assigned to units with lower promotion rates lookedaround them and saw people making no more headwaythan they were. Although they had not been promoted, nei-ther had many others, so they did not feel deprived. How-ever, soldiers in units with higher promotion rates couldthink of many people who had been promoted sooner ormore often than they had. With such people in mind, evensoldiers who had been promoted themselves were likely tofeel shortchanged.

The point is that we do not make judgments about our-selves in isolation, nor do we compare ourselves with justanyone. Regardless of our situation in absolute terms, weform a subjective sense of our well-being by looking at our-selves relative to specific reference groups (Merton, 1968;Mirowsky, 1987).

IN-GROUPS AND OUT-GROUPSEveryone favors some groups over others, whether becauseof political outlook, social prestige, or manner of dress. Onthe college campus, for example, left-leaning studentactivists may look down on fraternity members, whom theyview as conservative; fraternity members, in turn, may snubthe computer “nerds” and “grinds,” who work too hard. Peo-ple in virtually every social setting make similar positive andnegative evaluations about members of other groups.

Such judgments illustrate another key element of groupdynamics: the opposition of in-groups and out-groups. Anin-group is a social group toward which a member feels respectand commitment. An out-group, by contrast, is a social grouptoward which a person feels a sense of competition or opposi-tion. In-groups and out-groups are based on the idea that“we” have valued traits that “they” lack.

Tensions between groups sharpen the groups’ bound-aries and give people a clearer social identity. However,members of in-groups generally hold overly positive viewsof themselves and unfairly negative views of various out-groups (Tajfel, 1982; Bobo & Hutchings, 1996).

Power also shapes intergroup relations. A powerful in-group can define others as a lower-status out-group. His-torically, for example, white people viewed people of coloras an out-group and subordinated them socially, politically,and economically. Internalizing these negative attitudes,minorities often struggle to overcome negative self-images.In this way, in-groups and out-groups foster loyalty but alsogenerate conflict (Bobo & Hutchings, 1996).

GROUP SIZEThe next time you go to a party, try to arrive first. If you do,you will be in a position to observe some fascinating group

dynamics. Until about six people enter the room, everyonegenerally shares a single conversation. But as more peoplearrive, the group soon divides into two or more clusters.Group size plays a crucial role in how group membersinteract.

To understand why, note the mathematical number ofrelationships possible among two to seven people. As shownin Figure 5–2, two people form a single relationship; addinga third person results in three relationships; a fourth personyields six. Increasing the number of people further booststhe number of relationships much more rapidly becauseevery new individual can interact with everyone alreadythere. Thus, by the time seven people join one conversation,twenty-one “channels” connect them. With so many openchannels, at this point the group usually divides.

German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) exploredthe dynamics of the smallest social groups. Simmel (1950,orig. 1902) used the term dyad (from the Greek word for“pair”) to describe a social group with two members.

Simmel explained that social interaction in a dyad typ-ically is more intense than in larger groups because neithermember shares the other’s attention with anyone else. In theUnited States, love affairs, marriages, and the closest friend-ships are dyadic.

But like a stool with only two legs, dyads are unstable.Both members of a dyad must work to keep the relationshipgoing; if either withdraws, the group collapses. Because


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The triad, illustrated by Jonathan Green’s painting Friends, includesthree people. A triad is more stable than a dyad because conflictbetween any two persons can be mediated by the third member.Even so, should the relationship between any two become moreintense in a positive sense, those two are likely to exclude the third.

Jonathan Green, Friends, 1992. Oil on masonite, 14 in. 3 11 in. © Jonathan Green,Naples, Florida. Collection of Patric McCoy.

stable marriages are important to society, the marital dyadis supported with legal, economic, and often religious ties.

A triad, a social group with three members, containsthree relationships, each uniting two of the three people. Atriad is more stable than a dyad because one member canact as a mediator if relations between the other two becomestrained. This bit of group dynamics explains why membersof a dyad (say, a married couple) often seek out a third per-son (such as a counselor) to discuss tensions between them.

On the other hand, two of the three can pair up to presstheir views on the third, or two may intensify their relation-ship, leaving the other feeling left out. For example, whentwo of the three members of a triad develop a romanticinterest in each other, they discover the meaning of the oldsaying, “Two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

As groups grow beyond three people, they become more stable and capable of withstanding the loss of one ormore members. At the same time, increases in group sizereduce the intense interaction possible in only the smallestgroups. This is why larger groups are based less on personalattachments and more on formal rules and regulations. Suchformality helps the group persist over time, although it mayalso undergo change. The greater the number of members,the more contact there is with the outside world, opening thedoor to new attitudes and behaviors (Carley, 1991).

SOCIAL DIVERSITY: RACE, CLASS, AND GENDERRace, ethnicity, class, and gender each affect group dynam-ics. Peter Blau (1977; Blau, Blum, & Schwartz, 1982; South& Messner, 1986) points out three ways in which socialdiversity influences intergroup contact:

1. Large groups turn inward. Blau explains that the largera group is, the more likely its members are to concen-trate relationships among themselves. Say a college istrying to enhance social diversity by increasing thenumber of international students. These students mayadd a dimension of difference, but as their numbers rise,they become more likely to form their own social group.Thus, efforts to promote social diversity may have theunintended effect of promoting separatism.

2. Heterogeneous groups turn outward. The moresocially diverse a group is, the more likely its membersare to interact with outsiders. Campus groups thatrecruit people of both sexes and various social back-grounds typically have more intergroup contact thanthose with members of one social type.

3. Physical boundaries create social boundaries. To theextent that a social group is physically segregated fromothers (by having its own dorm or dining area, forexample), its members are less likely to interact withother people.

NETWORKSA network is a web of weak social ties. Think of a network asa “fuzzy” group containing people who come into occa-sional contact but lack a sense of boundaries and belonging.If you think of a group as a “circle of friends,” think of anetwork as a “social web” expanding outward, often reach-ing great distances and including large numbers of people.

Some networks come close to being groups, as in the caseof college friends who stay in touch years after graduation bye-mail and telephone. More commonly, however, a networkincludes people we know of—or who know of us—but withwhom we interact rarely, if at all. As one woman known as a


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community organizer puts it, “I get calls at home, [and]someone says, ‘Are you Roseann Navarro? Somebody told meto call you. I have this problem . . .”’ (Kaminer, 1984:94).

Network ties may be weak, but they can be a powerfulresource. For immigrants trying to become established in anew community, businesspeople seeking to expand theiroperations, or anyone looking for a job, whom you knowoften is just as important as what you know (Luo, 1997;Hagan, 1998; Petersen, Saporta, & Seidel, 2000).

Networks are based on people’s colleges, clubs, neigh-borhoods, political parties, and personal interests. Obviously,some networks are made up of people with more wealth,power, and prestige than others; that explains the importanceof being “well connected.” The networks of more privilegedcategories of people—such as the members of a countryclub—are a valuable form of “social capital,” which is more

likely to lead people in these categories to higher-paying jobs(Green, Tigges, & Diaz, 1999; Lin, Cook, & Burt, 2001).

Some people also have denser networks than others;that is, they are connected to more people. Typically, thelargest social networks include people who are young, well-educated, and living in large cities (Fernandez & Weinberg,1997; Podolny & Baron, 1997).

Gender also shapes networks. Although the networks ofmen and women are typically of the same size, women includemore relatives (and women) in their networks, whereas meninclude more co-workers (and more men). Women’s ties,therefore, may not be quite as powerful as the “old boy” net-works. Even so, research suggests that the networks of menand women are becoming more alike as gender inequality inthe United States decreases (Mencken & Winfield, 1999;Reskin & McBrier, 2000; Torres & Huffman, 2002).

G L O B A L S O C I O L O G Y

Its beginnings seem right out of the1960s Cold War film Dr. Strangelove.Back then, government officials and

scientists were trying to figure out how torun the country after an atomic attack,which, they assumed, would knock outtelephones and television. The solutionwas brilliant: Create a communication sys-tem with no central headquarters, no onein charge, and no main power switch—inshort, an electronic web that would linkthe country in one vast network.

By 1985, the federal governmentbegan installing high-speed data linesaround the country, and the Internetwas born. Today, thousands of collegesand universities, as well tens of thou-sands of government offices, are joinedby the Internet and share in the cost ofits operation. Home computers can beconnected to the “information super-highway” using a cable connection or atelephone line modem and a subscrip-tion to an Internet service provider.

How many people use the Internet?A rough estimate is that as of 2004,about 700 million people in 180 (of

192) countries around the world areconnected, forming the largest networkin history.

What is available on the Internet?Popular search engines such as Google(http://www.google.com) allow you tofind Web sites for just about any topicyou can imagine. The Internet alsoallows you to send e-mail: You can start a cyber-romance with a pen pal, write to your textbook author([email protected]), or even send a message to the president of the UnitedStates ([email protected]).Through the Internet, you can join indiscussion groups, visit museumsthrough “virtual tours,” access datafrom government agencies (a goodstarting point is http://www.census.gov),explore sites of sociological interest (try the author’s Web site at http://www.TheSociologyPage.com), or reviewfor exams in this course (http://www.prenhall.com/macionis). With no formal rules for its use, the Internet’spotential is limited only by our ownimaginations.

Ironically, perhaps, it is preciselythis freedom that disturbs some people.Critics claim that “electronic democ-racy” threatens our political system,parents fear that their children willaccess sexually explicit “adult sites,”and purists are angered as the Internetbecomes flooded with advertising.

In its “anything goes” character, the Internet is very much like the realworld. Not surprisingly, then, a recenttrend is that more and more users nowuse passwords, fees, and other “gates”to create subnetworks limited to peoplelike themselves. From one vast network,then, is emerging many social groups.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1. How much of your contact withother people is over the Internet?

2. How do you feel about the “anythinggoes” character of the Internet?

3. Can you point to both advantagesand disadvantages of Internet communication?

Sources: Based on Hafner (1994) and O’Connor (1997).

The Internet: A Global Network


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W I N D O W O N T H E W O R L DGLOBAL MAP 5–1 Internet Users in Global Perspective

This map shows how the Information Revolution has affected countries around the world. In most high-income nations,at least one-third of the population uses the Internet. By contrast, only a small share of people in low-income nations does so. What effect does this have on people’s access to information? What does this mean for the future in terms ofglobal inequality?

Sources: International Telecommunication Union (2003) and United Nations Development Programme (2004).

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EGYPT

LIBYA

U.A.E.

ALGERIAWESTERN

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Finally, new information technology has generated aglobal network of unprecedented size in the form of theInternet. The Global Sociology box on page 117 takes acloser look at the history and development of this twenty-first-century form of communication. Global Map 5–1shows that Internet use around the world is linked toincome levels.

Formal OrganizationsAs noted earlier, a century ago, most people lived in smallgroups of family, friends, and neighbors. Today, our livesrevolve more and more around formal organizations, largesecondary groups organized to achieve their goals efficiently.Formal organizations such as corporations and government


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Per

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1985 1990 1995 2000 2003

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78.3

FIGURE 5–3 Volunteer Work among First-YearCollege Students, 1985–2003

Sources: Astin et al. (2002) and Sax et al. (2003).

STUDENT SNAPSHOTagencies differ from small primary groups in their imper-sonality and their formally planned atmosphere.When you think about it, organizing almost 300 mil-

lion members of U.S. society is a remarkable operation,involving countless jobs, from collecting taxes to deliveringthe mail. To carry out most of these tasks, we rely on largeformal organizations, which develop lives and cultures oftheir own so that as members come and go, their operationcan stay much the same over many years.

TYPES OF FORMAL ORGANIZATIONSAmitai Etzioni (1975) identified three types of formalorganizations, distinguished by the reasons people partici-pate in them. Just about everyone who works for incomebelongs to a utilitarian organization. Joining a utilitarianorganization usually is a matter of individual choice,although most people must join one or another such organ-ization to make a living.

People join normative organizations not for income butto pursue some goal they think is morally worthwhile.Sometimes called voluntary associations, these include com-munity service groups (such as the PTA, the Lions Club, theLeague of Women Voters, and the Red Cross), political par-ties, and religious organizations. In global perspective, peo-ple in the United States are more likely than those in the restof the world to be members of voluntary associations (Cur-tis, Grabb, & Baer, 1992; Curtis, Baer, & Grabb, 2001;Schofer & Fourcade-Gourinchas, 2001). Figure 5–3 showsthe extent of volunteer work among first-year college stu-dents, which has risen in recent years.

Coercive organizations have involuntary memberships.People are forced to join these organizations as a form ofpunishment (prisons) or treatment (psychiatric hospitals).Coercive organizations have special physical features, suchas locked doors and barred windows, and are supervised bysecurity personnel. They isolate people (whom they label“inmates” or “patients”) for a period of time in order to rad-ically change their attitudes and behavior (Goffman, 1961).

It is possible for a single formal organization to fall intoall of these categories. For example, a mental hospital servesas a coercive organization for a patient, a utilitarian organi-zation for a psychiatrist, and a normative organization for ahospital volunteer.

ORIGINS OF BUREAUCRACYFormal organizations date back thousands of years. Eliteswho governed early empires relied on government officialsto collect taxes, undertake military campaigns, and buildmonumental structures, from the Great Wall of China tothe pyramids of Egypt.

However, early organizations had two limitations. First,they lacked the technology to travel over large distances, tocommunicate quickly, and to collect and store information.Second, the preindustrial societies they were trying to rulehad a traditional culture. Tradition, according to Germansociologist Max Weber, consists of values and beliefs passedfrom generation to generation. Tradition makes a societyconservative, Weber explained, because it limits an organi-zation’s efficiency and ability to change.

By contrast, Weber described the modern worldview asrationality, a way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate,matter-of-fact calculation of the most efficient means toaccomplish a particular task. A rational worldview pays littleattention to the past and is open to any changes that mightget the job done better or more quickly.

The rise of the “organizational society” rests on whatWeber called the rationalization of society, the historicalchange from tradition to rationality as the dominant mode ofhuman thought. Modern society, he claimed, becomes “dis-enchanted” as sentimental ties give way to a rational focuson science, complex technology, and the organizationalstructure called bureaucracy.


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Although formal organization is vital to modern, high-incomenations, it is far from new. Twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinesephilosopher and teacher K’ung Fu-Tzu (known to Westerners asConfucius) endorsed the idea that government offices should befilled by the most talented young men. This led to what wasprobably the world’s first system of civil service examinations.Here, would-be bureaucrats compose essays to demonstrate theirknowledge of Confucian texts.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BUREAUCRACYBureaucracy is an organizational model rationally designedto perform tasks efficiently. Bureaucratic officials regularlycreate and revise policy to increase efficiency. To appreciatethe power and scope of bureaucratic organization, considerthat any one of some 300 million phones in the UnitedStates can connect you within seconds to any other phonein a home, business, automobile, or even a hiker’s backpackon a remote trail in the Rocky Mountains. Such instantcommunication is beyond the imagination of people wholived in the ancient world.

Of course, the telephone system depends on technol-ogy such as electricity, fiber optics, and computers. But thesystem could not exist without the organizational capacity

to keep track of every telephone call—recording whichphone called which other phone, when, and for how long—and presenting all this information to more than 100 mil-lion telephone users in the form of monthly bills.

What specific traits promote organizational efficiency?Max Weber (1978, orig. 1921) identified six key elements ofthe ideal bureaucratic organization:

1. Specialization. Our ancestors spent most of their timelooking for food and finding shelter. Bureaucracy, bycontrast, assigns individuals highly specialized jobs.

2. Hierarchy of offices. Bureaucracies arrange workersin a vertical ranking of offices. Each person is thussupervised by “higher-ups” in the organization while in turn supervising others in lower positions.Usually, with few people at the top and many at thebottom, bureaucratic organizations take the form ofa pyramid.

3. Rules and regulations. Rationally enacted rules andregulations guide a bureaucracy’s operation. Ideally,a bureaucracy seeks to operate in a completely pre-dictable fashion.

4. Technical competence. Bureaucratic officials have the technical competence to carry out their duties.Bureaucracies typically hire new members accordingto set standards and then monitor their performance.Such impersonal evaluation contrasts with the ancientcustom of favoring relatives, whatever their talents,over strangers.

5. Impersonality. Bureaucracy puts rules ahead of per-sonal whim so that both clients and workers are alltreated the same. From this impersonal approachcomes the idea of the “faceless bureaucrat.”

6. Formal, written communications. Someone oncesaid that the heart of bureaucracy is not people but

paperwork. Ratherthan casual, face-to-face talk, bureau-

cracy depends on formal, written memos and reports,which accumulate in vast files.

Bureaucratic organization promotes efficiency by care-fully hiring workers and limiting the unpredictable effectsof personal taste and opinion. The Summing Up tablereviews the differences between small social groups andlarge formal organizations.

ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTNo organization operates in a vacuum. How any organiza-tion performs depends not only on its own goals and policies

To learn more about MaxWeber, visit the Gallery of Sociologists at http://www.TheSociologyPage.com


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but also on the organizational environment, factors out-side an organization that affect its operation. These factorsinclude technology, economic and political trends, and theavailable workforce, as well as other organizations.

Modern organizations are shaped by the technology ofcomputers, telephone systems, and copiers. Computersgive employees access to more information and peoplethan ever before. At the same time, computer technologyallows managers to closely monitor the activities of work-ers (Markoff, 1991).

Economic and political trends affect organizations. Allorganizations are helped or hurt by periodic economicgrowth or recession. Most industries also face competitionfrom abroad as well as changes in law—such as new envi-ronmental standards—at home.

Population patterns, such as the size and composition ofthe surrounding population, also affect organizations. Theaverage age, typical education, and social diversity of a localcommunity determine the available workforce and some-times the market for an organization’s products or services.

Other organizations also contribute to the organiza-tional environment. To be competitive, a hospital must beresponsive to the insurance industry and organizations rep-resenting doctors, nurses, and other workers. It must also beaware of the equipment and procedures available at nearbyfacilities, as well as their prices.

THE INFORMAL SIDE OF BUREAUCRACYWeber’s ideal bureaucracy deliberately regulates every activity. In actual organizations, however, human beings are

creative (and stubborn) enough to resist bureaucratic regu-lation. Informality may amount to simply cutting cornerson the job, but it also can provide the flexibility necessaryfor an organization to survive and prosper (Scott, 1981).

In part, informality comes from the varying personali-ties of organizational leaders. Studies of U.S. corporationsshow that the qualities and quirks of individuals—includ-ing personal charisma and interpersonal skills—greatlyaffect organizational success or failure (Halberstam, 1986;Baron, Hannan, & Burton, 1999).

Authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire types ofleadership (described earlier in this chapter) reflect individ-ual personality as much as any organizational plan. Then,too, in the “real world” of organizations, leaders sometimesseek to benefit personally through abuse of organizationalpower. Perhaps even more commonly, leaders take credit forthe efforts of those who work for them. For example, manysecretaries have far more authority and responsibility thantheir official job titles and salaries suggest.

Communication offers another example of organiza-tional informality. Memos and other written documents arethe formal way to spread information through the organi-zation. Typically, however, people create informal networks,or “grapevines,” that spread information quickly, if notalways accurately. Grapevines, using word of mouth and e-mail, are particularly important to rank-and-file workersbecause higher-ups often attempt to keep important infor-mation from them.

The spread of e-mail has “flattened” organizationssomewhat, allowing even the lowest-ranking employee tobypass immediate superiors to communicate directly with

SUMMING UPSmall Groups and Formal Organizations

Small Groups Formal Organizations

Activities Much the same for all members Distinct and highly specialized

Hierarchy Often informal or nonexistent Clearly defined, corresponding to offices

Norms General norms, informally applied Clearly defined rules and regulations

Membership criteria Variable; often based on personal affection or kinship Technical competence to carry out assigned tasks

Relationships Variable and typically primary Typically secondary, with selective primary ties

Communications Typically casual and face to face Typically formal and in writing

Focus Person-oriented Task-oriented


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George Tooker’s painting Government Bureau isa powerful statement about the human costs ofbureaucracy. The artist paints members of thepublic in a drab sameness—reduced fromhuman beings to mere “cases” to be disposedof as quickly as possible. Set apart from othersby their positions, officials are “facelessbureaucrats” concerned more with numbersthan with providing genuine assistance (noticethat the artist places the fingers of the officialson calculators).

George Tooker, Government Bureau, 1956. Egg tempera ongesso panel, 195⁄8 3 295⁄8 inches. The Metropolitan Museumof Art, George A. Hearn Fund, 1956 (56.78). Photograph © 1984 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

the organization’s leader or all fellow employees at once.Some organizations consider such “open channel” commu-nication unwelcome and limit the use of e-mail. Leadersalso may seek to protect themselves from a flood of mes-sages each day. Microsoft Corporation (whose leader, BillGates, has an “unlisted” address yet still receives hundreds ofe-mail messages a day) has developed screens that filter outall messages except those from approved people (Gwynne &Dickerson, 1997).

Despite the highly regulated nature of bureaucracy,members of formal organizations still find ways to person-alize their work and surroundings. Such efforts suggest thatwe now take a closer look at some of the problems ofbureaucracy.

PROBLEMS OF BUREAUCRACYWe rely on bureaucracy to manage countless dimensions ofeveryday life, but many people are uneasy about largeorganizations. Bureaucracy can dehumanize and manipu-late us, and some say it poses a threat to political democracy.

Bureaucratic alienation. Max Weber held up bureau-cracy as a model of productivity. Yet Weber was keenlyaware of bureaucracy’s potential to dehumanize the peopleit is supposed to serve. The same impersonality that fostersefficiency at the same time keeps officials and clients fromresponding to each other’s unique personal needs. Typically,officials treat each client impersonally as a standard “case.”

Formal organizations create alienation, according toWeber, by reducing the human being to “a small cog in a

ceaselessly moving mechanism” (1978:988, orig. 1921).Although formal organizations are designed to servehumanity, Weber feared that people might well end up serv-ing formal organizations.

Bureaucratic inefficiency and ritualism. Inefficiency, thefailure of a formal organization to carry out the work itexists to perform, is a familiar problem. According to onereport, the General Services Administration, the govern-ment agency that buys equipment for federal workers, takesup to three years to process a request for a new computer.This ensures that by the time the computer arrives, it isalready out of date (Gwynne & Dickerson, 1997).

The problem of inefficiency is captured in the concept ofred tape, a term derived from the ribbon used by eighteenth-century English administrators to wrap official parcels andrecords (Shipley, 1985). To Robert Merton (1968), red tapeamounts to a new twist on the familiar concept of group con-formity. He coined the term bureaucratic ritualism todescribe a focus on rules and regulations to the point of under-mining an organization’s goals. After the terrorist attacks in2001, for example, the post office continued to deliver mailaddressed to Osama bin Laden to a post office in Afghanistan,despite the objections of the FBI. It took an act of Congressto change the policy (Bedard, 2002).

Bureaucratic inertia. If bureaucrats sometimes have littlereason to work efficiently, they have every reason to protecttheir jobs. Thus, officials typically work to keep their organ-ization going even when its goal has been realized. As Weber


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put it, “Once fully established, bureaucracy is among thesocial structures which are hardest to destroy” (1978:987,orig. 1921).

Bureaucratic inertia refers to the tendency of bureau-cratic organizations to perpetuate themselves. Formal organi-zations tend to take on a life of their own beyond their formalobjectives. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculturestill has offices in nearly every county in all states, eventhough only about one county in ten has any working farms.Usually, an organization stays in business by redefining itsgoals; for example, the Agriculture Department now per-forms a broad range of work not directly related to farming,including nutritional and environmental research.

Oligarchy. Early in the twentieth century, Robert Michels(1876–1936) pointed out the link between bureaucracy andpolitical oligarchy, the rule of the many by the few (1949,orig. 1911). According to what Michels called “the iron lawof oligarchy,” the pyramid shape of bureaucracy places a fewleaders in charge of organizational resources.

Max Weber credited a strict hierarchy of responsi-bility with superior organizational efficiency. But Michelscountered that hierarchy also undermines democracybecause officials can—and often do—use their access toinformation, resources, and the media to promote their per-sonal interests.

Furthermore, bureaucracy helps distance officials fromthe public, as in the case of the corporate president or pub-lic official who is “unavailable for comment” to the localpress or the national president who claims “executive privi-lege” when withholding documents from Congress. Oli-garchy, then, thrives in the hierarchical structure ofbureaucracy and reduces the accountability of leaders to thepeople (Tolson, 1995).

Political competition, term limits, and a system ofchecks and balances prevent the U.S. government frombecoming an out-and-out oligarchy. Even so, those in officeenjoy a significant advantage in U.S. politics. In the 2000congressional elections, only 15 of 437 congressional office-holders running for reelection were defeated by their chal-lengers (Giroux, 2000; Pierce, 2000).

The Evolution of FormalOrganizationsThe problems of bureaucracy—especially the alienation itproduces and its tendency toward oligarchy—stem fromtwo organizational traits: hierarchy and rigidity. To Weber,bureaucracy is a top-down system: Rules and regulationsmade at the top guide every part of people’s work down the

chain of command. A century ago in the United States,Weber’s ideas took hold in an organizational model calledscientific management. We begin with a look at this modeland then examine three challenges over the course of thetwentieth century that gradually led to a new model: theflexible organization.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENTFrederick Winslow Taylor (1911) had a simple message:Most businesses in the United States were sadly inefficient.Most managers had little idea of how to increase output, andworkers relied on the same tired skills of earlier generations.

To increase efficiency, Taylor explained, businessshould apply the principles of science. Scientific manage-ment is the application of scientific principles to the operationof a business or other large organization.

Scientific management involves three steps. First, man-agers carefully observe the job performed by each worker,identifying all the operations involved and measuring thetime needed for each. Second, managers then analyze theirdata, trying to discover ways for workers to perform each jobmore efficiently. For example, managers might decide to give

According to Max Weber, bureaucracy is an organizational strategythat promotes efficiency. Impersonality, however, also fostersalienation among employees, who may become indifferent to theformal goals of the organization. The behavior of this municipalemployee in Bombay, India, is understandable to members offormal organizations almost anywhere in the world.


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The ideas of scientific management were most successfully appliedby Henry Ford, who pioneered the automobile assembly line. Asshown in this 1928 photograph of the Dearborn, Michigan, plant,Ford divided up the job of building cars into hundreds of differenttasks, each performed by a worker as the cars moved along anassembly line. The result was that new cars could be produced socheaply that most of these autoworkers could afford to buy one.

workers different tools or reposition various work operationswithin the factory. Third, management provides guidanceand incentives for workers to do their jobs more efficiently. Ifa factory worker moves 20 tons of pig iron in one day, forexample, management would show the worker how to do thejob more efficiently and then provide higher wages as theworker’s productivity rises. Applying scientific principles inthis way, Taylor concluded, companies become more prof-itable, workers earn higher wages, and in the end, consumersend up paying lower prices. Auto pioneer Henry Ford, whowas enthusiastic in his support of scientific management, putit this way: “Save ten steps a day for each of 12,000 employ-ees, and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion andmisspent energy” (Allen & Hyman, 1999:209).

In the early 1900s, the Ford Motor Company and manyother businesses followed Taylor’s lead and made dramaticimprovements in efficiency. As time went on, however, for-mal organizations faced three new challenges, involvingrace and gender, rising competition from abroad, andchanges in the nature of work itself. Let us take a brief lookat each of these challenges.

THE FIRST CHALLENGE: RACE AND GENDERIn the 1960s, critics pointed out that big businesses andother organizations were inefficient—and also unfair—intheir hiring practices. Rather than hiring on the basis ofcompetence, as Weber had proposed, they routinelyexcluded women and other minorities. As a result, mostmanagers were white men.

Patterns of privilege and exclusion. Even by the earlytwenty-first century, as shown in Figure 5–4, white men in the United States (35 percent of the working-age popu-lation) still held 56 percent of management jobs. Whitewomen made up 35 percent of the population, but they heldjust 28 percent of managerial positions (U.S. Equal Employ-ment Opportunity Commission, 2004). The members ofother minorities lagged further behind.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977; Kanter & Stein, 1979)points out that excluding women and minorities from the workplace ignores the talents of more than half the population. Furthermore, underrepresented people in anorganization often feel like socially isolated out-groups:uncomfortably visible, taken less seriously, and given fewerchances for promotion.

Opening up an organization, Kanter claims, improveseveryone’s on-the-job performance by motivating employ-ees to become “fast-trackers” who work harder and aremore committed to the company. By contrast, an organiza-tion with many dead-end jobs turns workers into unpro-ductive “zombies.” An open organization also encouragesleaders to seek out the ideas of everyone, which benefits thewhole organization. It is officials in rigid organizations—those who have little reason themselves to be creative—who jealously guard their privileges and closely supervisetheir employees.

The “female advantage.” Some organizational researchersargue that including more women, in particular, brings spe-cialized management skills that strengthen an organization.According to Deborah Tannen (1994), women have a greater“information focus” and more readily ask questions in orderto understand an issue. Men, by contrast, have an “imagefocus” that makes them wonder how asking questions in aparticular situation will affect their reputation.

In another study of women executives, Sally Helgesen(1990) found three additional gender-linked patterns.First, women place greater value on communication skillsand share information more than men do. Second, womenare more flexible leaders who typically give their employeesgreater freedom. Third, women place greater emphasis onthe interconnectedness of all organizational operations.


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0

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FIGURE 5–4 U.S. Managers in Private Industry by Race, Sex, and Ethnicity, 2002

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (2002) and U.S. Equal Employment OpportunityCommission (2004).

DIVERS ITY SNAPSHOTShe coined the term female advantage for these patterns,which help companies that are trying to be more flexibleand democratic.

In sum, one challenge to conventional bureaucracy isincreased openness and flexibility that can take advantage ofeveryone’s experience, ideas, and creativity. The result goesright to the bottom line: greater profits.

THE SECOND CHALLENGE: THE JAPANESE WORK ORGANIZATIONIn 1980, the corporate world in the United States wasshaken to discover that the most popular automobile modelsold in this country was not a Chevrolet, Ford, or Plymouthbut the Honda Accord, made in Japan. To people oldenough to remember the 1950s, the words “made in Japan”generally meant a cheap, poorly made product. But timeshad changed. The success of the Japanese auto industry(and shortly thereafter, companies making electronics, cam-eras, and other products) soon had analysts buzzing aboutthe “Japanese organization.” How else could so small acountry challenge the world’s economic powerhouse?

Japanese organizations reflect that nation’s strong col-lective spirit. In contrast to the U.S. emphasis on ruggedindividualism, the Japanese value cooperation. In effect,formal organizations in Japan are like very large primarygroups. A generation ago, William Ouchi (1981) high-lighted differences between formal organizations in Japanand in the United States. First, Japanese companies hirednew workers in groups, giving everyone the same salaryand responsibilities. Second, many Japanese companieshired workers for life, fostering strong loyalties. Third,many Japanese organizations trained workers in all phasesof operations, again with the idea that employees willremain with the company for life. Fourth, although Japan-ese corporate leaders took ultimate responsibility for theirorganization’s performance, they involved workers in“quality circles” to discuss decisions that affect them. Fifth,Japanese companies played a large role in the lives of work-ers, providing home mortgages, sponsoring recreationalactivities, and scheduling social events. These characteris-tics encourage loyalty among members of Japanese organ-izations—much more than is typically the case in theUnited States.

For decades, people around the world marveled at theeconomic “miracle” of Japanese organizations. But thepraise was premature. Around 1990, the Japanese economyentered a downward trend that is only now showing signs ofending. As a result of this downturn, most Japanese compa-nies no longer offer workers jobs for life or many of theother benefits that Ouchi noted.

THE THIRD CHALLENGE: THE CHANGING NATURE OF WORKBeyond rising global competition and the need to provideequal opportunity for all, pressure to modify conventionalorganizations is also coming from changes in the nature ofwork itself. In recent decades, the U.S. economy has movedfrom industrial to postindustrial production. In otherwords, rather than working in factories using heavymachinery to make things, more people are using comput-ers and other electronic technology to create or processinformation. A postindustrial society, then, is characterizedby information-based organizations.

Frederick Taylor developed his concept of scientificmanagement at a time when most jobs involved tasks that,though often backbreaking, were routine. Workers shoveledcoal, poured liquid iron into molds, welded body panels toautomobiles on an assembly line, or shot hot rivets into steelgirders to build skyscrapers. In addition, a large part of theU.S. labor force in Taylor’s day was immigrants, most ofwhom had little schooling and many of whom knew littleEnglish. The routine nature of industrial jobs, coupled with


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FIGURE 5–5 Two Organizational Models

The conventional model of bureaucratic organizationshas a pyramid shape, with a clear chain ofcommand. Orders flow from the top down, andreports of performance flow from the bottom up.Such organizations have extensive rules andregulations, and their workers have highly specializedjobs. More open and flexible organizations have aflatter shape, more like a football. With fewer levelsin the hierarchy, responsibility for generating ideasand making decisions is shared throughout theorganization. Many workers do their jobs in teamsand have a broad knowledge of the entireorganization’s operation.

Source: Created by the author.

CONVENTIONALBUREAUCRACY

OPEN, FLEXIBLEORGANIZATION

Numerous, competingwork teams

CEO

Senior managers

CEO

Topexecutives

Division leaders

Middle managers

Rank-and-file workers

the limited skills of the labor force, led Taylor to treat workas a series of fixed tasks set down by management and fol-lowed by employees.

Many of today’s information age jobs are very different:The work of designers, artists, consultants, writers, editors,composers, programmers, business owners, and others nowdemands creativity and imagination. What does this meanfor formal organizations? Here are several ways in whichtoday’s organizations differ from those of a century ago:

1. Creative freedom. As one Hewlett-Packard executiveput it, “From their first day of work here, people aregiven important responsibilities and are encouragedto grow” (cited in Brooks, 2000:128). Today’s organi-zations treat employees with information age skills asa vital resource. Executives can set production goalsbut cannot dictate how to accomplish tasks involvingimagination and discovery. This gives highly skilledworkers creative freedom, which means they are sub-ject to less day-to-day supervision as long as they generate good ideas in the long run.

2. Competitive work teams. Many organizations giveseveral groups of employees the freedom to work on a problem, at the same time offering the greatestrewards to the group that comes up with the bestsolution. Competitive work teams—a strategy firstused by Japanese organizations—draw out the creativecontributions of everyone and at the same timereduce the alienation often found in conventionalorganizations (Maddox, 1994; Yeatts, 1994).

3. A flatter organization. By spreading responsibilityfor creative problem solving throughout the workforce,

organizations take on a flatter shape. That is, the pyra-mid shape of conventional bureaucracy is replaced byan organizational form with fewer levels in the chainof command, as shown in Figure 5–5.

4. Greater flexibility. The typical industrial age organi-zation was a rigid structure guided from the top. Suchorganizations may accomplish a good deal of work,but they are not especially creative or able to respondquickly to changes in their larger environment. Theideal model in the information age is a more open,flexible organization, one that both generates newideas and, in a rapidly changing global marketplace,adapts quickly.

As David Brooks puts it, “The machine is no longerheld up as the standard that healthy organizations shouldemulate. Now, it’s the ecosystem” (2000:128). Today’s“smart” companies seek out intelligent, creative people(America Online’s main building is called “Creative CenterOne”) and encourage the growth of their talents.

Keep in mind, however, that many of today’s jobs donot involve creative work at all. In reality, the postindustrialeconomy has created two very different types of work:highly skilled creative work and low-skilled service work.The work in the fast-food industry, for example, is routineand highly supervised and thus has much more in com-mon with factory work of a century ago than with the creative teamwork typical of today’s information organiza-tions. Therefore, at the same time that some organizationshave taken on a flatter, more flexible form, others continueto use a rigid chain of command, as the next sectionexplains.


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1The term “McDonaldization” was coined by Jim Hightower (1975); muchof the material in this section is based on Ritzer (1993, 1998, 2000) andSchlosser (2002).

THE “MCDONALDIZATION” OF SOCIETY1

As noted in the opening to this chapter, McDonald’s hasenjoyed enormous success, now operating more than30,000 restaurants in the United States and around theworld. Japan now has more than 2,400 sets of GoldenArches, and the world’s largest McDonald’s is found inChina’s capital city of Beijing.

October 9, Macao. Here we are, halfway

around the world, in the Portuguese colony

of Macao, a little nub jutting from the

Chinese coast. Few people speak English, and life on the

streets seems a world apart from the urban rhythms of

New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Then I turn the cor-

ner and stand face to face with (who else?) Ronald

McDonald! After eating who-knows-what for many

days, forgive me for giving in to the lure of the Big Mac.

But the most amazing thing is that the food—the

burger, fries, and drinks—looks, smells, and tastes exactly

the same as it does back home 10,000 miles away!

McDonald’s is far more than a restaurant chain; it is asymbol of U.S. culture. Not only do people around theworld associate McDonald’s with the United States, but hereat home, one poll found that 98 percent of schoolchildrencould identify Ronald McDonald, making him as wellknown as Santa Claus.

Even more important, the organizational principlesthat underlie McDonald’s are coming to dominate ourentire society. Our culture is becoming “McDonaldized,” anawkward way of saying that many aspects of life are mod-eled on the famous restaurant chain. Parents buy toys atworldwide chain stores such as Toys ‘R’ Us; we drive in toJiffy Lube for a ten-minute oil change; face-to-face commu-nication is being replaced more and more with voice mail,e-mail, and junk mail; more vacations take the form ofresort and tour packages; television presents news in theform of ten-second sound bites; college admissions officerssize up students they have never met by glancing at theirGPA and SAT scores; and professors assign ghostwrittentextbooks2 and evaluate students by giving tests mass-produced for them by publishing companies. The list goeson and on.

The best of today’s “information-age jobs”—including working at the popular search-engine Web siteGoogle—allow people lots of personal freedom as long as they produce good ideas. At the same time, manyother jobs—such as working the counter at McDonald’s—involve the same routines and strict supervisionfound in factories a century ago.

2A number of popular sociology texts were not written by the personwhose name appears on the cover. This book is not one of them.


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Basic principles. What do all these developments have incommon? According to George Ritzer (1993), theMcDonaldization of society involves four basic organiza-tional principles:

1. Efficiency. Ray Kroc, the marketing genius behindMcDonald’s, set out with one goal: to serve a ham-burger, French fries, and a milkshake to every cus-tomer in fifty seconds or less. Today, one of thecompany’s most popular items is the Egg McMuffin,an entire breakfast in a single sandwich. In the restau-rant, customers bus their own trays or, better still,drive away from the pickup window, taking whatevermess they make with them. Such efficiency is now

central to our way of life. We tend to think that any-thing done quickly is, for that reason alone, good.

2. Standardization. The first McDonald’s operatingmanual declared the weight of a regular raw ham-burger to be 1.6 ounces, its size to be 3.875 inchesacross, and its fat content to be 19 percent. A slice ofcheese weighs exactly half an ounce, and French friesare cut precisely 9/32 of an inch thick.

Think about how many objects around the home,the workplace, and the campus are designed andmass-produced uniformly according to a standardplan. Not just our environment but our life experi-ences—from traveling the nation’s interstate highways

C O N T R O V E R S Y & D E B AT E

Late for a meeting with a newclient, Sarah drives her car througha yellow light just as it turns red. Acomputer notes the violation, and acamera snaps a picture of the rearof the car, showing the licenseplate. At the same moment, anothercamera photographs the side of thecar, showing Sarah behind thewheel. In seven days, she receives asummons to appear in court.

Joe dials a toll-free number tocheck the pollen count. As he lis-tens to a recorded message, aCaller ID computer identifies Joeand pulls up his profile from a pub-lic records database. The fact thatJoe suffers from allergies is addedto his profile, which is sold to adrug company, prompting the com-pany to send Joe a free sample of anew allergy medication.

At a local department store, Ninauses her American Express card to

buy an expensive new watch andsome sleepwear. The store’s com-puter adds Nina’s name to its data-bases of “buyers of expensivejewelry” and “buyers of sexy lin-gerie.” The store trades these data-bases with other companies, andwithin a month, Nina receives fourjewelry catalogues and an adultvideo brochure (Bernstein, 1997;Hamilton, 2001).

Are these cases of serving thepublic, or are they violations ofpeople’s privacy? The answer, of

course, is both: The same systems thathelp organizations operate efficientlyalso allow them to invade our lives andmanipulate us. As bureaucracy hasexpanded in the United States, privacyhas declined.

People had little privacy in thesmall-town life of the past, but at least if people knew something aboutyou, you were just as likely to know

something about them. Today, unknownpeople “out there” can access informa-tion about any of us at any time.

In part, the loss of privacy is aresult of increasingly complex com-puter technology. Are you aware thatevery time you send an e-mail or visit aWeb site, you leave a record in one ormore computers? Most of these recordscan be seen by people you don’t know,as well as by employers and even bypolice and other public officials.

Another part of today’s loss of pri-vacy reflects the increasing numberand size of formal organizations. Asexplained in this chapter, large organi-zations tend to treat people imperson-ally, and they have a huge appetite forinformation. Mix large organizationswith ever more complex computertechnology, and it is no wonder thatmost people in the United States areconcerned about who knows whatabout them—and what is being donewith this information.

Computer Technology, Large Organizations,and the Assault on Privacy


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to sitting at home viewing national TV shows—arenow more standardized than ever before.

3. Uniformity and predictability. A person can walkinto a McDonald’s restaurant almost anywhere andbuy the same sandwiches, drinks, and desserts pre-pared in precisely the same way.3 Uniformity resultsfrom a highly rational system that specifies everyaction and leaves nothing to chance.

4. Control through automation. The most unreliableelement in the McDonald’s system is human beings.After all, people have good and bad days, sometimeslet their minds wander, or decide to try something adifferent way. To minimize the unpredictable human

element, McDonald’s has automated its equipment tocook food at a fixed temperature for a set length oftime. Even the cash register at McDonald’s is keyed topictures of the items so that ringing up a customer’sorder is as simple as possible.

3As McDonald’s has “gone global,” a few products have been added orchanged according to local tastes. For example, in Uruguay, customersenjoy the McHuevo (hamburger with poached egg on top); Norwegians can buy McLaks (grilled salmon sandwiches); the Dutch favor the Groen-teburger (vegetable burger); in Thailand, McDonald’s serves Samurai porkburgers; the Japanese can purchase Chicken Tatsuta Sandwich (chickenseasoned with soy and ginger); Filipinos eat McSpaghetti (spaghetti withtomato sauce and bits of hot dog); and in India, where Hindus eat no beef,McDonald’s sells a vegetarian Maharaja Mac (Sullivan, 1995).

C O N T R O V E R S Y & D E B AT E

C O N T R O V E R S Y & D E B AT EFor decades, the level of personal

privacy in the United States has beendeclining. Early in the twentieth cen-tury, when state agencies began issuingdriver’s licenses, they generated filesfor every licensed driver. Today, officialscan send this information at the touchof a button to other organizations,including the police. Similarly, theInternal Revenue Service, the SocialSecurity Administration, and govern-ment agencies that benefit veterans,students, the unemployed, and thepoor all collect extensive information.

Business organizations now domuch the same thing, although, as theexamples show, people may not beaware that their choices and activitiesend up in a company’s database. Mostpeople find credit cards a great con-venience—the U.S. population nowholds more than 1 billion of them,averaging more than five per adult—but one price we pay for the conven-ience of credit card purchases isautomatic creation of records that canend up almost anywhere.

Then there are the small camerasthat are found in stores, public build-ings, parking garages, and collegecampuses. The number of surveillance

cameras that monitor our movementsis rapidly increasing with each passingyear. Such cameras may increase pub-lic safety in some ways—say, by dis-couraging a mugger or even aterrorist—but only at the cost of thelittle privacy we have left.

After the September 11, 2001,terrorist attacks, the federal govern-ment took steps (including passage ofthe USA Patriot Act) to strengthennational security. Now government offi-cials more closely monitor not just whoenters the country but the activities ofall members of U.S. society. Nationalsecurity and privacy do not go welltogether.

Of course, some legal protectionsremain. All the states have enactedlaws giving citizens rights to examinesome records about themselves kept byemployers, banks, and credit bureaus.The U.S. Privacy Act of 1974 also lim-its the exchange of personal informa-tion among government agencies andpermits citizens to examine and cor-rect most government files. But somany organizations (both public andprivate) now have information aboutus—experts estimate that 90 percentof U.S. households are profiled in

databases somewhere—that currentlaws simply do not address the extentof the privacy problem. In the pastdecade, the Internet revolution hasmade the safeguarding of personal pri-vacy more difficult than ever. Yet thereare still no national standards that pro-tect public privacy.

CONTINUE THE DEBATE . . .

1. Do you believe that the concernover national security is eroding privacy? Which is more important?Explain your position.

2. Internet search engines such asYahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) have“people search” programs that letyou locate almost anyone. Do youthink such programs pose a threatto personal privacy?

3. In your opinion, will personal pri-vacy continue to decline in theUnited States in years to come?Why or why not?

Sources: Wright (1998), “Online Privacy” (2000),Rosen (2000), Hamilton (2001), and Heymann(2002).


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Similarly, automatic teller machines are replacingbanks, highly automated bakeries produce bread withscarcely any human intervention, and chickens and eggs (oris it eggs and chickens?) emerge from automated hatcheries.In supermarkets, laser scanners at self-checkouts are phas-ing out human checkers. Most of our shopping now occursin malls, where everything from temperature and humidityto the kinds of stores and products are subject to continu-ous control and supervision (Ide & Cordell, 1994).

Can rationality be irrational? There can be no argumentabout the popularity or efficiency of McDonald’s. But thereis another side to the story.

Max Weber was alarmed at the increasing rationaliza-tion of the world, fearing that formal organizations wouldcage our imaginations and crush the human spirit. As hesaw it, rational systems were efficient but dehumanizing.McDonaldization bears him out. Each of the four princi-ples just discussed limits human creativity, choice, andfreedom. Echoing Weber, Ritzer states that “the ultimateirrationality of McDonaldization is that people could losecontrol over the system and it would come to control us”(1993:14

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