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The
specialization in the sociology of organizations and institutions provides
students with an integrated view of macro- and meso-societal processes.
While the study of societal institutions has its roots in the evolutionary
sociology of Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, and in the structural-functionalism
of Talcott Parsons, it has been re-invigorated by the contributions of such
contemporary theorists as Gerhard Lenski, Niklas Luhmann, Anthony Giddens,
and Jonathan Turner. At the same time, the study of organizational structure
has moved toward theories that acknowledge the constraints imposed on the
rationality of organizational behavior by the power, values, and/or cognitive
expectations of organizational actors. As political, normative, and cognitive
systems, organizations are no longer seen as being independent of institutional
processes, and are instead seen as being interpenetrated by them. In so
far as organizations engage the political, normative, and/or cognitive interests
of their employees, a wide range of organizational theorists now claim that
they deserve recognition as being institutions in their own right. |
