SOCIOL 144 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Organizational Commitment, Scientific Management, Human Factors And Ergonomics
Document Summary
Markets vs. hierarchies: the economic approach to organization. The economic approach to organizing transactions and/or collaboration argues that markets represent the ideal form of bi-lateral exchange. Buying fruits or vegetables at a farmer"s market: searching for a good dentist, dating in order to find a mate. If the collection and evaluation of information works efficiently, then buyers and sellers, patients and doctors, or a potential set of mates will find each other. Markets represent the best way to organize these transactions because they don"t require external oversight. Instead they police themselves through competition and cultural constraints such as the norm of reciprocity. the norm of reciprocity states that exchange partners or collaborators will receive. If they do not, then market participants break off the exchange or collaboration and seek new partners in future exchanges or collaboration. It is generally assumed in these transactional processes that exchanges or collaboration is repeated or ongoing. The market failures framework: from markets to hierarchies.
