Unit 3: Social Organizational Theories

Cards (57)

  • 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.