Unit 3: Social Organizational Theories

• Ferdinand Tonnies was best known for distinguishing between two

  types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
• Peter Blau developed exchange theory.
• 2 types of rewards: Intrinsic and extrinsic.
• The parties cannot always reward each other equally; when there is inequality in the exchange. A difference of power will emerge within

  an association.
• Blau’s concept of social exchange is limited to actions that are contingent, that depend, on rewarding reactions from others.
• Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism.
• Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, FBA was an English social anthropologist who helped further develop the theory of structural functionalism.
• Both Durkheim and Radcliffe-Brown posited one basic societal need, the integration and the analysis of its system parts, to determine how they meet this need.
• The hypothesis cannot be tested, even in principle.
• Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was a Polish- British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of

  anthropology.
• Malinowski offered a way for modern sociologists to employ

  functional analysis (1) the notion of system levels and (2) the concept of different and multiple system needs at each level.
• Malinowski's 3 system levels: (1) Biological systems; (2) Symbolic systems; (3) Social structural systems.
• (2) TWO MOST SOCIOLOGICALLY RELEVANT SYSTEM LEVELS: (1) Cultural system level; (2) Structural system level.
• Institutional analysis: Organized to meet critical requisites; certain universal "elements".
• 6 essential features of institutions: (1) Personnel; (2) Charter; (3) Norms; (4) Material apparatus; (5) Activity; (6) Function.
• Personnel: Who and how many people will participate in the institution?
• Charter: What is the purpose of the institution? What are its vowed

  goals?
• Norms: What are the key that regulate and organize conduct?
• Material apparatus: What is the nature of the tools and facilities used to organize and regulate conduct in pursuit of goals?
• Activity: How are tasks and activities divided? Who does what?
• Function: What requisite does a pattern of institutional activity meet?
• Talcott Parsons' 1937, 1st Published work "The Structure of Social Action.
• Social (voluntaristic) action basic elements: (1) Involves actors making subjective decisions about the means to achieve goals(2) Possess alternative means to achieve the goals; (3) Governed by values, norms, and other ideas; (4) Viewed as goal-seeking.
• Parsons made the conceptual transition from unit acts to social system.
• Motives: needs and readiness to mobilize energy.
• Values: conceptions about what is appropriate.
• 3 types of motives: (1) Cognitive (information); (2) Cathetic (emotional attachment); (3) Evaluative (assessment).
• 3 types of values: (1) Cognitive (objective standards); (2) Appreciative (aesthetic standards); (3) Moral (absolute

  rightness and wrongness).
• According to Parsons, actor is driven by motives and values.
• Composite type of action: (1) instrumental; (2) expressive; (3) moral.
• Systems of action were conceptualized to have four survival problems, or requisites: (1) adaptation; (2) goal attainment; (3) integration; and (4) latency.
• Adaptation: response to or manipulation of external environment.
• Goal attainment: definition and achievement of primary functions.
• Latent pattern maintenance: cultural patterns that sustain and refresh motivation for action.
• Integration: oversight and coordination of component parts/functions.
• Weber's main concern is with regularities and patterns of action within civilizations, institutions, organizations, strata, classes, and groups.
• Weber's Pessimism and the Basic Problem for Early European Theory.
• Max Weber: new utopian society and rationalization.
• Weber felt, involves the ever- increasing penetration of means-

  ends rationality into more spheres of life, thereby destroying older

  traditions and moral fabric.
• Weber agreed with Georg Simmel that this rationalization of life brings individuals a new freedom from domination by traditional forces.