Showing papers in "Review of Sociology in 1976"

Environments of Organizations

Abstract: The relationship between organizations and environments has drawn increasing attention in the recent literature of the sociology of organizations. We consider the subject of interorganizational relations to be a special case of the more general study of organizations and their environments. Dimensions of interorganizational rela­ tions have been listed (Marrett 1971), and partially developed paradigms for analyz­ ing organization-environment relations have been proposed. The natural selection model, developing the strongest argument for an environmental perspective, posits that environmental factors select those organizational characteristics that best fit the environment (Hannan & Freeman 1974, Aldrich' 1971b). A complementary model, variously called a political economy model (Benson 1975, Wamsley & Zald 1973), a dependence exchange approach (Jacobs 1974, Hasenfeld 1972), and a resource dependence model (Pfeffer 1972b), argues for greater attention to internal organiza­ tional political decision-making processes and also for the perspective that organiza­ tions seek to manage or strategically adapt to their environments. The two models agree on the importance of organizational environments for understanding organizational decisions and structures, but differ in their evaluation of the importance of the role of environmental selection. Current literature has elements of both incompletely developed perspectives and the shape of organiza­ tional sociology will be determined by the implicit debate taking place. As it is impossible to ascertain the ultimate resolution of this argument, we have chosen to examine both perspectives in this chapter, and to include literature from industrial organization, and administrative science and organizational behavior, as well as from organizational sociology.

The Differentiation of Life-Styles

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to review recent literature on traditional and contemporary life-styles in the light of the cultural differentiation of tastes and preferences. We start with the assumption that tastes are neither completely determined by economic status, as was implied by Marx, nor totally individualized. Tastes are determined in part by relative position in the markets for wealth and prestige, in part by individual choice informed by education and experience, and in part by voluntarily chosen, collectively held standards that determine life-styles. Life-style differentia­ tion takes place both inside and outside the markets for wealth and prestige and hence crosscuts them.l In this paper we discuss both c1assical life-styles generated by socioeconomic stratification and alternative life-styles generated as spontaneous attempts to reach consensus on standards of value in the absence of compelling traditional market constraints. Empirically, tastes are revealed in economic consumption patterns; political be­ liefs; and moral, ethical, and aesthetic standards. The collectively held standards that actually differentiate among life-styles vary from time to time and from place to place. In the past decade American society has witnessed a proliferation of alternative life-styles. Preferences for two-career families over one-career families, ethnic reidentification over assimilation, homosexual relationships over heterosex­ ual relationships, communal living over family living, and immediate gratification over deferred gratification, among many others, have been responsible for the emer­ gence of distinctive life"styles. Many ofthese may be of purely ethnographic interest, while others will probably have measurable effects on such economic and social indicators as energy consumption, purchase of housing and durable goods, fertility, saving and borrowing patterns, and marriage and divorce.

Development of Evaluated Role Identities

Abstract: Roles are among the most basic structural components of both social systems and personal systems: the value aspects of roles connect person to culture, the normative aspects of roles provide motivation to conduct and structure to social action, and the "sense-making" or interpretive aspects of roles determine much of personal cognition, attitudinal predispositions, memories, and plans. Self-conceptions are the special systems of reflexive meanings (categorical inclu­ sions and dimensional characterizations, both cognitive and evaluative) that persons develop in the process of interpreting their own actions and relationships to each of the persons and other social objects that become significant to them (Gordon 1963, 1966: 1 1 6; Gordon & Gergen 1968; Gergen 1970). The orienting purpose of this chapter is to integrate the major themes in the recent theoretical and empirical literature concerning the development, modification, relin­ quishment, and general functioning of role identities as key components that inter­ connect persons and social systems by providing both location and motivation of the individual within the role-taking and role-making processes (Turner 1962, McCall & Simmons 1966). The conceptualization of role to be used is that offered by Ralph Turner:

Advanced Medical Technology-Social and Ethical Implications

Abstract: During the past decade, from the mid1960s to the present, there has been a progressive outpouring of publications on the social, ethical, theological, and legal implications of developments in biomedical research and technology. The appearance of this now vast literature has coincided with the emergence of a new area of inquiry and action that has come to be known as bioethics.' In the words of Daniel Callahan (1973e), a philosopher-ethicist who has pioneered in this field, "Bioethics is not yet a full discipline. Most of its practitioners have wandered into the field from somewhere else, more or less inventing it as they go. . . . It is not yet a genuine discipline as that concept is usually understood in the academic and scientific communities." From its inception, bioethics has been multidimensional and cross-disciplinary in orientation and content. Formal statements about the primary participants in the discussion, research, and writing that it has entailed are likely to cite sociologists along with "physicians, biologists, psychologists, . . . lawyers, historians and philosophical and religious ethicists" (Walters 1975). However, an examination of the literature on bioethical issues associated with advances in medical science, technology, and therapy reveals a remarkable paucity of work by sociologists or by other social scientists in this area. The relative absence of sociological articles and books concerned with these aspects of biomedical knowledge and techniques is surprising;

Sociological Theory from the Chicago Dominance to 1965

Abstract: Were I to take the title of this essay literally, it would take an amount of space that the editor would surely not condone. Much, though alas not all, sociological writing in the period under consideration involved some effort at theoretical analysis. Raw empiricism, though still being practiced, was clearly in retreat. Under the circum­ stances I was forced to impose on myself a self-denying ordinance by discussing only those developments that aimed self-consciously to erect theoretical structures of general scope which hopefully would provide guidelines for large varieties of con­ crete sociological investigations. This essay hence has nothing to say about, for example, the impressive developments of demographic theory or about the efflores­ Cence of theoretical thought in urban sociology, but limits itself to those theoretical trends that strike the observer as having general significance over and beyond any specialized field of inquiry within sociology. This is not the place to indulge in yet another effort at explicating the relations between sociological theory and sociological research. I was impressed by the enor­ mous amount of good sociological research that was produced during the period under consideration, even though I was sometimes quite saddened to discover how much research effort has failed to withstand the test of time. Most of the valuable research was informed by theoretical notions of one sort or another, and largely for that reason contributed to the cumulation of sociological knowledge. That none of this is discussed here stems from the limitations alluded to earlier and is definitely not meant to indicate any kind of preference for theory over research. Since various varieties of functionalism took pride of place during most of the period covered here, a large part of this essay is devoted to their consideration. Social interactionism, exchange theory, conflict theory, and related developments are also discussed in some detail in the second part of this essay. There will inevitably be

Physiological Sociology: Interface of Sociological and Biological Processes

Abstract: Concern for the relationship of social and biological processes has a long, if sporadic, precedent in sociology. By the turn of the century, articles with citations to still earlier work were appearing in American journals. For example, Ward (1895-1896) worked from Spencer to draw broad comparisons between social and biological systems, positing transformation of certain energies as the element common to both, and concluding, via specialization of function and division of labor, that a strong centralized government is called for. Thomas (1897) explained most of society in terms of sex differences, which he felt to be derived from metabolic differences between males and females. He thought females to be more plant-like than males in their metabolism. Park (1926, 1926-1927) argued in still more telling terms that the basic unit of analysis is neither physiologic nor psychologic, but social. Schools of criminology searched for physical factors that distinguished deviants (Monachesi 1936, Cantor 1936). The inquiries are of necessity constrained by the disseminated biologic knowledge; hindsight highlights the influence of ideologies. In the late 1950s articles began to appear that reflected the then burgeoning developments in modern biology. Among other things, these developments began to specify and trace out the remarkable homeostatic systems of the body. These researches foreshadow current physiological sociology, which is the study of how the body tunes to the social structure, and how that tuning in turn acts upon the social structure itself. Leiderman & Shapiro (1964) edited a still relevant volume that reflects that inquiry. In the interim, biological work was generously supported; substantive questions profited from a technology that permitted biology to refine its measurements tremendously. Compounds in the body are measured more accurately and more sensitively today than even a decade ago by factors of as much as a thousand and more. Electronic developments have permitted measurement of the body's electrical events

Religion-recent strands in research

Abstract: As recently as two decades ago the challenge of writing an annual review of research on religion would have been to find enough to fill it-that is, enough work that was more than a substantive sounding and represented a true theoretical or methodologi­ cal advance. Despite the classic statements by Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, and others, there emerged very few works on religion in the years between 1920 and 1955 that are now deservedly recalled; however, beginning in the middle 1950s, the field has undergone what can only be described as an accelerating revival. This was in part an ironic response to the end of a reported revival in religion itself. In addition, the renewed interest was a function of new theoretical and methodologi­ cal developments in sociology, developments that found fertile application in the realm of both conventional religion and the wider spheres of cultural belief systems, social mechanisms of integration, and individual pursuits of meaning and affiliation. In one sense, it was these broader themes that marked a return to some of the classic statements noted above. As we shall see, the ghosts of Weber and Durkheim con­ tinue to linger even as recent developments have extended and amended their legacies in sometimes radical fashions. This review is primarily organized in terms of three major topics, each of which has seen the emergence of new answers to enduring questions. The first concerns the sources of religious sentiment, and spans cross-cultural, structural, subcultural, and ethnic, as well as individual, differences in pursuit of a more sophisticated and viable model. The second major topic concerns the consequences of religious com­ mitment, including both interand intrareligious group differences stemming from Weber's thesis on the Protestant ethic. Finally, we are concerned with recent re­ search on old and emerging forms of religious organization. Here we include not only recent materials on church versus sect and problems of the clergy, but also a variety of emergent religious forms including youth movements and "civil" religion. In all of this, it is manifestly impossible to summarize the entire recent literature. Instead, we have highlighted empirical studies that mark significant conceptual

American Sociology Before World War II

Abstract: Early American sociology has been worked over and written up by so many able individuals that the probability of generating new facts is slight. However, the unfolding of collective experience from time to time forces reevaluation of historical antecedents and while the facts may not be new, their significance often becomes novel. As Croce observed, each age must rewrite history from its own perspective. The present essay is commissioned as a bicentennial review of American sociology through the period of dominance of the Chicago school. This is here taken to mean roughly to Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1 , 1 939, which marked the outbreak of World War II, the end of the Depression, and the transformation of the internal and external character of American society. This transformation was so radical as to render inappropriate the family of sociological theories that had become dominant in American sociology and its capital, the University of Chicago. The changed milieu was a major factor in the shift in the center of sociological domi­ nance from the Midwest to the coasts. At an earlier time, at the beginning rather than the end of the period covered by the present essay, milieu forces played a role in the differentiation of American sociology from its European originals.

Rural Community Studies in the United States: A Decade in Review

Abstract: Any survey of a decade of research in a particular area should describe the substantive nature (topics treated) as well as methodological characteristics. We take up the first of these in the section on thematic emphases and the second in our discussion of levels of analysis. Initially, however, it is important to clarify the definition of guidelines for the selection of the rural community studies reviewed here. By rural we mean communities that are (a) relatively small in size (in many cases they would meet the US census definition of rural, i.e. have a population of 2500 or less1); (b) nonmetropolitan, i.e. do not fall within the penumbra of a metropolitan area (for example, suburbs, regardless of size, are excluded, as are other fringe areas); and (c) of a clearly rural character, i.e. exist in the midst of an agricultural area, an area characterized as a "primacy economy," or one marked by other obvious nonurban cultural, social, and ecological characteristics. Rather than using rigid definitions, we examined each study on its merits with the above considerations in mind. A community with a population of, say, 3500 was not necessarily excluded merely because it exceeded the census definition of rural. If it appeared to be essentially rural in character and was not within a metropolitan area (e.g. a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area), it would be included. To qualify as a community study there must be some indication that the investigator was examining an interaction system in which territoriality (or a spatial dimension) was an explicit factor. Not only did there have to be some evidence of either an explicit or implicit conceptualization of "community" in the mind of the investi-