- 著者
-
本橋 康子
- 出版者
- 日本社会学会
- 雑誌
- 社会学評論 (ISSN:00215414)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.17, no.3, pp.55-72, 1967-01-30 (Released:2010-12-10)
- 参考文献数
- 79
It is a comparatively new phenomenon that the problem of organization, which had been treated as a part of group theory in sociology, began to be presented as organization theory. And we can say that in this fact the problem which organization theory itself has is presented. The aim of this treatise is to get some outlook about the basic view of organization theory by finding a clue in the theory of A. W. Gouldner who tried a methodological approach by laying the problems of organization on the basis of sociology. When Gouldner made distinction between the two prescriptions Max Weber had given to bureaucracy —bureaucracy as a technical system and that as a ruling system based on the legal office— as two patterns of bureaucracy, and presented the two famous concepts, “representative bureaucracy” and “punishment-centered bureaucracy”, he intended to exclude a pessimistic view of organization such as the contradiction between bureaucratization and democracy, and to pursue the accomplishment of rationality in organization. But the empirical studies in industrial organizations showed that “representative bureaucracy” is merely one functional mode and that it is “punishment-centered bureaucracy” that appears in social structure in general. As the result of it, the concept of organizational analysis was displaced by more general concepts such as “rational model” and “natural-system model”, and the tension between organizations and a structural change are explained by the tensional relation between these two factors which are immanent in the organization itself. “Rational model” belongs to the theoretical tradition of Saint-Simon=Max Weber and grasps organization as a rational technical system, while “natural-system model”. which originated from Comte and in which Parsons is a theoretical representative today, puts emphasis on the abiogenetic order in social system and develops a norm-centered theory of organization. Gouldner's criticism was made mainly on the static balance theory of “natural-system model”, and he seeks the motive power of revolution in the accomplishment of rationality in organization. However, the concept of “functional autonomy”, which he presented in an explanatory model of an organizational change, or as what synthesizes the both models, is consequently set up at the point nearer to “natural-system model”. That is, the independency of parts, which is guaranteed by this concept, makes a high adaptation to the threat from outside a system possible, by this it guarantees the stability of a system, and accordingly it is merely within this stable sphere. This appears with a more concrete form in the proposal of “applied sociology” to make a rational plan and control of society effectively. Though it is a natural conclusion of the organization theory which gave up the concept of class, in connection with the occurence of the discussion on the character and the problematic sphere of marxist sociology it should be examined in an objective sense that an approach toward a vital analysis has begun to be made from functionalism theory, which restricted its theme within a static analysis, in a form of organization theory.