Formal Organizations Understand As noted earlier, a century ago, most people lived in small groups of family, friends, and neighbors. Today, our lives revolve more and more around formal organizations, large secondary groups organized to achieve their goals efficiently. Formal organizations, such as corporations and government agencies, differ from small primary groups in their impersonality and their formally planned atmosphere. When you think about it, organizing more than 300 million members of U.S. society is truly remarkable, whether it involves paving roads, collecting taxes, schooling children, or delivering the mail. To carry out most of these tasks, we rely on large formal organizations. Types of Formal Organizations Amitai Etzioni (1975) identified three types of formal organizations, distinguished by the reasons people participate in them: utilitarian organizations, normative organizations, and coercive organizations. Utilitarian Organizations Just about everyone who works for income belongs to a utilitarian organization, one that pays people for their efforts. Becoming part of a utilitarian organizationa business, government agency, or school system, for exampleis usually a matter of individual choice, although most people must join one or another such organization to make a living. Normative Organizations People join normative organizations not for income but to pursue some goal they think is morally worthwhile. Sometimes called voluntary associations, these include community service groups (such as Amnesty International, the PTA, the League of Women Voters, and the Red Cross), political parties, and religious organizations. In global perspective, people in the United States and in other highincome nations are the most likely to join voluntary associations. A recent study found that 73 percent of firstyear college students in the United States said they had participated in some organized volunteer activity within the past year (Pryor et al., 2010; see also Curtis, Baer, & Grabb, 2001; Schofer & FourcadeGourinchas, 2001). Coercive Organizations Coercive organizations have involuntary memberships. People are forced to join these organizations as a form of punishment (prisons) or treatment (some psychiatric hospitals). Coercive organizations have special physical features, such as locked doors and barred windows, and are supervised by security personnel. They isolate people (whom they label \"inmates\" or \"patients\") for a period of time in order to radically change their attitudes and behavior. Recall from Chapter 3 (\"Socialization: From Infancy to Old Age\") the power of a total institution to change a person's sense of self. The 2010 film The Social Network depicts the birth of Facebook, now one of the largest social networking sites in the world. In what ways have Internetbased social networks changed social life in the United States? It is possible for a single organization to fall into all of these categories from the point of view of different individuals. For example, a mental hospital serves as a coercive organization for a patient, a utilitarian organization for a psychiatrist, and a normative organization for a hospital volunteer. Origins of Formal Organizations Formal organizations date back thousands of years. Elites who controlled early empires relied on government officials to collect taxes, undertake military campaigns, and build monumental structures, from the Great Wall of China to the pyramids of Egypt. However, early organizations had two limitations. First, they lacked the technology to travel over large distances, to communicate quickly, and to gather and store information. Second, the preindustrial societies they were trying to rule had traditional cultures. Tradition, according to the German sociologist Max Weber, consists of values and beliefs passed from generation to generation. Tradition makes a society conservative, Weber explained, because it limits an organization's efficiency and ability to change. By contrast, Weber described the modern worldview as rationality, a way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate, matteroffact calculation of the most efficient way to accomplish a particular task. A rational worldview pays little attention to the past and is open to any changes that might get the job done better or more quickly. The rise of the \"organizational society\" rests on what Weber called the rationalization of society, the historical change from tradition to rationality as the main type of human thought. Modern society, he claimed, becomes \"disenchanted\" as sentimental ties give way to a rational focus on science, complex technology, and the organizational structure called bureaucracy. Characteristics of Bureaucracy Bureaucracy is an organizational model rationally designed to perform tasks efficiently. Bureaucratic officials regularly create and revise policy to increase efficiency. To appreciate the power and scope of bureaucratic organization, consider that any one of more than 400 million telephones in the United States can connect you within seconds to any other phone in a home, a business, an automobile, or even a hiker's backpack on a remote trail in the Rocky Mountains. Such instant communication is beyond the imagination of people who lived in the ancient world. Our telephone system depends on technology such as electricity, fiber optics, and computers. But the system could not exist without the organizational capacity to keep track of every telephone callrecording which phone called which other phone, when, and for how longand presenting all this information to more than 300 million telephone users in the form of a monthly bill (FCC, 2010; CTIA, 2011). What specific traits promote organizational efficiency? Max Weber (1978, orig. 1921) identified six key elements of the ideal bureaucratic organization: 1. Specialization. Our ancestors spent most of their time looking for food and finding shelter. Bureaucracy, by contrast, assigns individuals highly specialized jobs. 2. Hierarchy of offices. Bureaucracies arrange workers in a vertical ranking. Each person is thus supervised by someone \"higher up\" in the organization while in turn supervising others in lower positions. Usually, with few people at the top and many at the bottom, bureaucratic organizations take the form of a pyramid. 3. Rules and regulations. Rationally enacted rules and regulations guide a bureaucracy's operation. Ideally, a bureaucracy seeks to operate in a completely predictable way. 4. Technical competence. Bureaucratic officials have the technical competence to carry out their duties. Bureaucracies typically hire new members according to set standards and then monitor their performance. Such impersonal evaluation contrasts with the ancient custom of favoring relatives, whatever their talents, over strangers. 5. Impersonality. Bureaucracy puts rules ahead of personal whim so that both clients and workers are all treated in the same way. From this impersonal approach comes the commonplace image of the \"faceless bureaucrat.\" Weber described the operation of the ideal bureaucracy as rational and highly efficient. In real life, actual large organizations often operate very differently from Weber's model, as can be seen on the television show 30 Rock. 6. Formal, written communications. It is often said that the heart of bureaucracy is not people but paperwork. Rather than casual, facetoface talk, bureaucracy depends on formal, written memos and reports, which accumulate in vast files. Bureaucratic organization promotes efficiency by carefully hiring workers and limiting the unpredictable effects of personal taste and opinion. The Summing Up table reviews the differences between small social groups and large formal organizations. Organizational Environment All organizations exist in the larger world. How well any organization performs depends not only on its own goals and policies but also on the organizational environment, factors outside an organization that affect its operation. These factors include technology, economic and political trends, current events, the available workforce, and other organizations. Modern organizations are shaped by technology, including copiers, telephones, and computer equipment. Computers give employees access to more information and people than ever before. At the same time, computer technology allows managers to monitor the activities of workers much more closely than in the past (Markoff, 1991). Economic and political trends affect organizations. All organizations are helped or hurt by periodic economic growth or recession. Most industries also face competition from abroad as well as changes in lawssuch as new environmental standardsat home. Population patterns also affect organizations. The average age, typical level of education, social diversity, and size of a local community determine the available workforce and sometimes the market for an organization's products or services. Current events can have significant effects even on organizations that are far away. Events such as the economic instability in Europe, the sweeping political changes in the Middle East, and the current level of consumer confidence affect the operation of both government and business organizations. Other organizations also contribute to the organizational environment. To be competitive, a hospital must be responsive to the insurance industry and to organizations representing doctors, nurses, and other health care workers. It must also be aware of the medical equipment, health care procedures, and prices available at nearby facilities. The Informal Side of Bureaucracy Weber's ideal bureaucracy deliberately regulates every activity. In reallife organizations, however, human beings are creative (and stubborn) enough to resist bureaucratic regulation. Informality may amount to cutting corners on the job at times, but it can also provide the flexibility needed for an organization to adapt and be successful. In part, informality comes from the personalities of organizational leaders. Studies of U.S. corporations document that the qualities and quirks of individualsincluding personal charisma, interpersonal skills, and the ability to recognize problemscan have a great effect on organizational performance (Halberstam, 1986; Baron, Hannan, & Burton, 1999). Authoritarian, democratic, and laissezfaire types of leadership (described earlier in this chapter) reflect individual personality as much as any organizational plan. Then, too, in the \"real world\" of organizations, leaders sometimes seek to benefit personally through abuse of organizational power. From the news media, we learn that many corporate leaders of banks and insurance companies that collapsed since the financial meltdown of 2008 walked off with multimilliondollar \"golden parachutes.\" Throughout the business world, leaders take credit for the efforts of the people who work for them, at least when things go well. For example, the importance of many secretaries is much greater than most people think, and certainly greater than a secretary's official job title and salary suggest. Summing Up Small 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 facetoface Typically formal and in writing Focus Personoriented Taskoriented Communication offers another example of organizational informality. Memos and other written documents are the formal way to spread information throughout an organization. Typically, however, people create informal networks, or \"grapevines,\" that spread information quickly, if not always accurately. Grapevines, using word of mouth and email, are particularly important to rankandfile workers because higherups often try to keep important information from them. The spread of email has \"flattened\" organizations somewhat, allowing even the lowest ranking employee to bypass immediate superiors and communicate directly with the organization's leader or all fellow employees at once. Some organizations consider such \"openchannel\" communication unwelcome and limit the use of email. Leaders may also seek to protect themselves from a flood of messages each day. Microsoft Corporation (whose founder, Bill Gates, has an unlisted email address that helps him limit his mail to a few hundred messages each day) has developed screens that filter out all messages except those from approved people (Gwynne & Dickerson, 1997). Using new information technology together with ageold human ingenuity, members of formal organizations often find ways to personalize their work and surroundings. Such efforts suggest that we should take a closer look at some of the problems of bureaucracy. Problems of Bureaucracy We rely on bureaucracy to manage everyday life efficiently, but many people are uneasy about large organizations gaining too much influence. Bureaucracy can dehumanize and manipulate us, and some say it poses a threat to political democracy. These dangers are discussed in the following sections. Bureaucratic Alienation Max Weber held up bureaucracy as a model of productivity. Yet Weber was keenly aware of bureaucracy's potential to dehumanize the people it is supposed to serve. The impersonality that fosters efficiency also keeps officials and clients from responding to each other's unique personal needs. Typically, officials treat each client impersonally as a standard \"case.\" Sometimes the tendency toward dehumanization goes too far, as in 2008 when the U.S. Army accidentally sent letters to family members of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, addressing the recipients as \"John Doe\" (\"Army Apologizes,\" 2009). Formal organizations create alienation, according to Weber, by reducing the human being to \"a small cog in a ceaselessly moving mechanism\" (1978:988, orig. 1921). Although formal organizations are designed to benefit humanity, Weber feared that people might well end up serving formal organizations. Bureaucratic Inefficiency and Ritualism On Labor Day 2005, as people in New Orleans and other coastal areas were battling to survive in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, 600 firefighters from around the country assembled in a hotel meeting room in Atlanta awaiting deployment. Officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) explained to the crowd that they were first going to be given a lecture on \"equal opportunity, sexual harassment, and customer service.\" Then, the official continued, they would each be given a stack of FEMA pamphlets with the agency's phone number to distribute to people in the devastated areas. A firefighter stood up and shouted, \"This is ridiculous! Our fire departments and mayors sent us down here to save lives, and you've got us doing this?\" The FEMA official thundered back, \"You are now employees of FEMA, and you will follow orders and do what you are told!\" (\"Places,\" 2005:39). George Tooker's painting Government Bureau is a powerful statement about the human costs of bureaucracy. The artist paints members of the public in a drab samenessreduced from human beings to mere \"cases\" to be disposed of as quickly as possible. Set apart from others by their positions, officials are \"faceless bureaucrats\" concerned more with numbers than with providing genuine assistance (notice that the artist places the fingers of the officials on calculators). George Tooker, Government Bureau, 1956. Egg tempera on gesso panel, inches. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George A. Hearn Fund, 1956 (56.78). Photograph 1984 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. People sometimes describe inefficiency by saying that an organization has too much \"red tape,\" meaning that important work does not get done. The term \"red tape\" is derived from the ribbon used by slowworking eighteenthcentury English administrators to wrap official parcels and records (Shipley, 1985). To Robert Merton (1968), red tape amounts to a new twist on the already familiar concept of group conformity. He coined the term bureaucratic ritualism to describe focusing on rules and regulations to the point of undermining an organization's goals. In short, rules and regulations should be a means to an end, not an end in themselves that takes the focus away from the organization's stated goals. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Postal Service continued to help deliver mail addressed to Osama bin Laden to a post office in Afghanistan, despite the objections of the FBI. It took an act of Congress to change the policy (Bedard, 2002). Bureaucratic Inertia If bureaucrats sometimes have little reason to work very hard, they have every reason to protect their jobs. Thus officials typically work to keep an organization going even when its original goal has been realized. As Weber put it, \"Once fully established, bureaucracy is among the social structures which are hardest to destroy\" (1978:987, orig. 1921). Bureaucratic inertia refers to the tendency of bureaucratic organizations to perpetuate themselves. Formal organizations tend to take on a life of their own beyond their formal objectives. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has offices in nearly every county in all fifty states, even though only about one county in seven has any working farms and just 1 percent of the population works in farming. This governmental department now has an annual budget (about $130 billion) that exceeds the net farm income for the entire country (Hanson, 2011). Usually, an organization manages to stay in business by redefining its goals; for example, the Agriculture Department now performs a broad range of work not directly related to farming, including nutritional and environmental research