SOC300H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Hawthorne Effect, Bounded Rationality, Satisficing
Document Summary
Difference between understandings of organizational behavior with different assumptions and different foci. What accounts for criminal behavior: structural reasons, social reasons, biological reasons, personality reasons, cultural reasons. What accounts for organizational behavior: rational systems: goals, forma structure, natural systems: survival, informal structures, open: environment, interdependence. Technical/functional rationality is different the extent to which a series of actions organized in such a way as to lead to predetermined goals with maximum efficiency. Efficient pursuit of goals is key (nazi germany) Organizations are collectivities oriented to the pursuit of relatively specific goals and exhibiting relatively highly formalized social structures. (scott. Formal = official, grounded in something beyond the personal/cultural whims/characteristics e. g. , written rules, official hierarchies syllabus, grading schema, vice principal. This class will always have a professor, whether or not it"s me helps stability: succession. Organizations (and their formal structures) are instruments for specific ends. They are efficient (or rational) means of achieving ends. and they can (should) be improved!
