Chapter 6.3 Sociology

Meritocracies

> A bureaucracy where membership and advancement is based on merit—proven and documented skills. > Hiring and promotion is based on proven and documented skills, rather than on nepotism or random choice. > In order to get into a prestigious college, you need to perform well on the SAT and have an impressive transcript. > In order to become a lawyer and represent clients, you must graduate law school and pass the state bar exam.

Bureaucracies

> Bureaucracies are an ideal type of formal organization. > Pioneer sociologist Max Weber popularly characterized a bureaucracy as having a hierarchy of authority, a clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonality.

Bureaucracies

> Formal organizations characterized by a hierarchy of authority, a clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonality. > A bureaucracy is an ideal type of formal organization. Ideal doesn't mean "best" in its sociological usage; it refers to a general model that describes a collection of characteristics, or a type that could describe most examples of the item under discussion.

Sociologist Amitai Etzioni (1975)

> He posited that formal organizations fall into three categories > There are three main types of formal organizations: coercive, utilitarian, and normative.

Coercive organizations

> Organizations that people do not voluntarily join, such as prison or a mental hospital. > Some people end up in organizations involuntarily because they have violated the law or been judged to be mentally ill. > Prisons and state mental institutions are examples of such coercive organizations, which, as total institutions, seek to control all phases of their members' lives.

Normative or voluntary organizations

> Organizations that people join to pursue shared interests or because they provide some intangible rewards. > Their members do not get paid and instead contribute their time or money because they like or admire what the organization does. > The many examples of normative organizations include churches and synagogues, Boy and Girl Scouts, the Kiwanis Club and other civic groups, and groups with political objectives, such as the National Council of La Raza, the largest advocacy organization for Latino civil rights.

Hierarchy of authority (bureaucracy)

> Refers to the aspect of bureaucracy that places one individual or office in charge of another, who in turn must answer to her own superiors. > As an employee at Walmart, your shift manager assigns you tasks. Your shift manager answers to his store manager, who must answer to her regional manager, and so on in a chain of command, up to the CEO who must answer to the board members, who in turn answer to the stockholders. Everyone in this bureaucracy follows the chain of command.

Explicit rules (bureaucracy)

> Refers to the way in which rules are outlined, written down, and standardized. > At your college or university, the student guidelines are contained within the Student Handbook. As technology changes and campuses encounter new concerns like cyber-bullying, identity theft, and other hot-button issues, organizations are scrambling to ensure their explicit rules cover these emerging topics.

McDonaldization of Society

> The increasing presence of the fast food business model in common social institutions. > This business model includes efficiency (the division of labor), predictability, calculability, and control (monitoring).

Impersonality (bureaucracy)

> The removal of personal feelings from a professional situation. > . Large business organizations like Walmart often situate themselves as bureaucracies. > This allows them to effectively and efficiently serve volumes of customers quickly and with affordable products. > This results in an impersonal organization. Customers frequently complain that stores like Walmart care little about individuals, other businesses, and the community at large.

Total organizations

An organization in which participants live a controlled lifestyle and in which total resocialization occurs

Clear division of labor (bureaucracy)

Refers to the fact that within a bureaucracy, each individual has a specialized task to perform.

Iron Rule of Oligarchy

The theory that an organization is ruled by a few elites rather than through collaboration

Formal organization

Large, impersonal organizations

Utilitarian organizations

Organizations that are joined to fill a specific material need

McDonaldization of Society example

For example, in your average chain grocery store, people at the register check out customers while stockers keep the shelves full of goods and deli workers slice meats and cheese to order (efficiency). > Whenever you enter a store within that grocery chain, you receive the same type of goods, see the same store organization, and find the same brands at the same prices (predictability). > You will find that goods are sold by the pound, so that you can weigh your fruit and vegetable purchase rather than simply guessing at the price for that bag of onions, while the employees use a timecard to calculate their hours and receive overtime pay (calculability). >Finally, you will notice that all store employees are wearing a uniform and usually a name tag so that they can be easily identified. There are security cameras to monitor the store, and some parts of the store, such as the stockroom, are generally considered off-limits to customers (control).