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FI FTH EDITION

Organizations
Rational, Natural, and Open Systems

w. Richard Scott
Stanford University

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Prentice Hall

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CHAPTER

1

The Subject Is Organizations
The recurrent problem in sociology is toconceive of corporate organization, and to study it, in ways that do not anthropomorphize it and do not reduce it to the behavior of individuals or of human aggregates.
GUY

E. SWANSON (1976)

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Ubiquity. There is no need to belabor the assertion that ours is an organizational society-that organizations are a promInent, ifnot the dominant, characteristic of modernsocieties. Organizations were present in older civilizations-Chinese, Greek, Indian-but only in modern industrialized societies do we find large numbers of organizations engaged in performing many highly diverse tasks. To the ancient organizational assignments of soldiering, public administration, and tax collection have been added such varied tasks as discovery (research organizations), child andadult socialization (schools and universities); resocialization (mental hospitals and prisons), production and distribution of goods (industrial firms. wholesale and retail establishments). provision of services (organizauons 'd isp e n sin g assistance ranging from laundry and shoe repair to medical care and investment counseling), protection of personal and financial security (police departments,insurance firms, banking and trust companies), preservation of culture (museums, art galleries, universities, libraries) , communication (radio 31) television studios, _d telephone companies, the U.S. Postal Service), and re-creation (bowling alleys, pool halls. the National Park Service, professional football teams). Even such a partial Iistmg testifies to the truth of Parsons's statement that "thedevelopment of organizations is the principal mechanism by which, in a highly differentiated society, it is possible to 'ge t things done,' to achieve goals beyond the reach of the individual" (1960: 41).
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4

An Introduction to Organizations

Until very recently.ieven highly developed societies such as the United States did not keep accurate records on organizations. We kept close, watch ofthe numbers of individuals and the flow of dollars, but gave less scrutiny to organizations. It was not until the 1980s that the U.S. Bureau of the Census launched a Standard Statistical Establishment List for all businesses, distinguishing between an establishment-an economic unit at a single location-and a firm or company-a business organization consisting of one or more domestic establishments...