Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

(1977) assembled eighty-five prestige studies of sixty nations, tribal societies, and territories. Comparing the United States with fifty-nine other societies yielded an average intercorrelation of .837; in other words, about 70 percent of the variation in U.S. prestige evaluations is shared in common

with the ‘‘average’’ society available to Treiman. To be sure, the correlations ranged from .98 for Canada to .54 for Zaire. Prestige hierarchies are similar, but not identical. Notable differences relate to level of economic development (Treiman 1977) and the greater appreciation of manual

labor in socialist societies (Penn 1975; for a Chinese exception, see Lin and Xie 1988).

Fourth, subgroups within a society also tend to agree about the relative ranking of occupations. Efforts to discern differences between blacks and whites, between those employed in more versus less prestigious jobs, have typically found little effect of the respondent’s social location on his or her view of the occupational hierarchy (e.g., Goldthorpe and Hope, 1972; Kraus et al. 1978). To be sure, higher-status groups assign somewhat higher absolute rankings to high-status jobs than do lower-status groups, who tend to boost lowerstatus jobs somewhat (Hodge and Rossi 1978). Apparently, this phenomenon does not arise because groups hold self-serving views of the social order. Instead, high-status individuals agree more among themselves and, thus, avoid random ranking errors that move both highand low-status occupations toward the middle of the distribution. In comparison to the differences among individuals in their ratings (i.e., reported interrater correlations range from .42 to .745), the variation between groups is smaller than the variation within groups (Hodge et al. 1982). Since location in the social structure has been shown to influence so many other attitudes, it is surprising that groups agree so closely on the order of occupations. The mechanisms leading to this consensus are not well understood. By early adolescence, however, children can agree on how jobs rank (Gunn 1964).

Fifth, the main factors associated with an occupation’s prestige are its education and income levels, the basic logic behind the original construction of the Socioeconomic Index (Duncan 1961). Socioeconomic scores based on these two factors account for about 80 percent of the variation in prestige attributed to different occupations (Hodge 1981). Based on the 1989 prestige scores and the occupational data from the 1990 U.S. Census, Hauser and Warren (1997) also reported that in several models they used, between 70 and 80 percent of the variance in occupational prestige was accounted for by occupational education and earnings.

In the studies of status attainment models, socioeconomic status scores were demonstrated to be superior to prestige scores in accounting for a son’s occupational achievement using his father’s status (Featherman et al. 1975; Featherman

and Hauser 1976; Treas and Tyree 1979). It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss occupational prestige. Subgroups of raters agree not only on the prestige of an occupation, but also on how prestige differs from the occupation’s socioeconomic location (Hodge 1981). Furthermore, a more recent study by Kerckhoff et al. (1989) showed in a comparative study of status attainment in the United States and Great Britain, that differences between the two countries were illuminated in the models using prestige scores, but not in the models using the Socioeconomic Index. The British data yielded stronger intergenerational effect on the respondents’ occupations than did the United States data when prestige scores were used. This implies that the prestige scale captures different aspects of the status attainment process than the Socioeconomic Index does.

However important the educational requirements and economic rewards of occupations, they are not alone in determining the prestige accorded occupations. The racial or age composition of jobs may also figure in their public evaluation. Even controlling for education and occupation, a higher proportion of nonwhites in an occupation is associated with a lower prestige rating (Siegel 1971). Occupations dominated by the very young or the very old are similarly disadvantaged (Siegel 1971). However, the proportion of women in an occupation was shown to have no or little effect on prestige (England 1979; Bose and Rossi 1983; Fox and Suschnigg 1989).

There is no conclusive evidence that American respondents consistently downgrade the status of female-gendered occupational titles (e.g., policewoman) as compared with male titles (e.g., policeman). However, male (but not female) respondents do downgrade the standing of occupations in which women find employment—a relation that holds after the income and education levels of workers are taken into account (Meyer 1978). Further studies are warranted investigating systematic associations between gender and occupational evaluation.

Empirical studies of occupational prestige are based on the notion that prestige represents a hierarchy of social standing of individuals or aggregates based on their occupations. This notion is widely used in analyses of social survey data as a

variable indicating an individual’s social status. While it is a useful index, the assumption behind its application as a measure of social status is that individuals’ social positions are manifested by the occupations they hold. This assumption is rooted in the fact that occupation is a means through which social and economic resources are distributed. Furthermore, occupation is salient in one’s life, providing not only economic needs, but also social relations that establish one’s role in a society. This assumption may hold true in most industrialized countries, yet it perhaps deserves a further consideration in future research. As to what measure is appropriate as an index of social status in what context (for example, socioeconomic scale versus prestige scale), further research is called for that would lead us to a more thorough understanding of the stratification system and the process of individuals’ attainment of social positions within it.

Goldthorpe, J. H., and K. Hope 1974 The Social Grading of Occupations. A New Scale and Approach. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press.

Gunn, B. 1964 ‘‘Children’s Conceptions of Occupational Prestige.’’ Personnel and Guidance Journal 558–563.

Hauser, R. M., and J. R. Warren 1997 ‘‘Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique.’’ Sociological Methodology 27:177–298.

Hodge, R. W. 1981 ‘‘The Measurement of Occupational Prestige.’’ Social Science Research 10:396–415.

———, and P. M. Rossi 1978 ‘‘Intergroup Consensus in Occupational Prestige Ratings: A Case of Serendipity Lost and Regained.’’ Sozialwissenschaftliche Annelen

2:B59–B73.

Hodge, R.W, P. M. Siegel, and P. Rossi 1964 ‘‘Occupational Prestige in the United States, 1925–1963.’’

American Journal of Sociology 70:286–302.

Kerckhoff, A. C., R. T. Campbell, J. M. Trott, and V. Kraus 1989 ‘‘The Transmission of Socioeconomic Status and Prestige in Great Britain and the United States.’’ Sociological Forum 4:155–177.

REFERENCES

Bose, C. E., and P. H Rossi 1983 ‘‘Gender and Jobs: Prestige Standings of Occupations as Affected by Gender.’’ American Sociological Review 48:316–330.

Burton, M. 1972 ‘‘Semantic Dimensions of Occupational Names.’’ In A. Kimball Romney, Roger N. Shepard, and Sara Nerlove, eds., Multidimensional Scaling: Theory and Applications in the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 2, Applications. New York: Seminar.

Duncan, O. D. 1961 ‘‘A Socioeconomic Index for All Occupations.’’ In Albert J. Reiss, Jr., et al., eds.,

Occupations and Social Status. New York: Free Press.

England, P. 1979 ‘‘Women and Occupational Prestige: A Vacuous Sex Inequality.’’ Signs 5:252–265.

Featherman, D. L., F. L. Jones, and R. M. Hauser 1975 ‘‘Assumptions of Social Mobility Research in the U.S.: The Case of Occupational Status.’’ Social Science Research 4:329–360.

Featherman, D. L., and R. M. Hauser 1976 ‘‘Prestige or Socioeconomic Scales in the Study of Occupational Achievement?’’ Sociological Methods and Research

4:402–422.

Fox, J., and C. Suschinigg 1989 ‘‘A Note on Gender and the Prestige of Occupations.’’ Canadian Journal of Sociology 14(3):353–360.

Goldthorpe, J. H., and K. Hope 1972 ‘‘Occupational Grading and Occupational Prestige.’’ In Keith Hope, ed., The Analysis of Social Mobility: Methods and Approaches. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press.

Kraus, V., E. O. Schild, and R. W. Hodge 1978 ‘‘Occupational Prestige in the Collective Conscience.’’ Social Forces 56:900–918.

Lin, N., and W. Xie 1988 ‘‘Occupational Prestige in Urban China.’’ American Journal of Sociology 93:793–832.

Meyer, G. S. 1978 ‘‘Sex and Marriage of Raters in the Evaluation of Occupations ‘‘Social Science Research 7:366–388.

Nakao, K., R. W. Hodge, and J. Treas 1990 On Revising Prestige Scores for All Occupations. General Social Survey Methodological Report No. 69.

Nakao, K., and J. Treas 1994 ‘‘Updating Occupational Prestige and Socioeconomic Scores: How the New Measures Measure Up.’’ Sociological Methodology 24:1–72.

Penn, R. 1975 ‘‘Occupational Prestige Hierarchies: A Great Empirical Invariant?’’ Social Forces 54:352–364.

Reiss, A. J., Jr., O. D. Duncan, P. K. Hatt, and C. C. North 1961 Occupations and Social Status. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

Schwartz, B. 1981 Vertical Classification: A Study in Structuralism and the Sociology of Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Siegel, P. M. 1971 Prestige in the American Occupational Structure. Ph.D. diss, University of Chicago.

Treas, J., and A. Tyree 1979 ‘‘Prestige Versus Socioeconomic Status in the Attainment Processes of American Men and Women.’’ Social Science Research 8:201–221.

Treiman, D. J. 1977 Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective. New York: Academic Press.

Treiman, D. J., and K. Terrell 1975 ‘‘Women, Work and Wages-Trends in the Female Occupation Structure.’’ In Kenneth C. Land and Seymour Spilerman, eds.,

Social Indicator Models. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Wegener, B. 1992 ‘‘Concepts and Measurement of Prestige.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 18:253–280.

KEIKO NAKAO

OCCUPATIONS

See Professions; Work and Occupations.

ORGANIZATIONAL

EFFECTIVENESS

See Bureaucracy; Complex Organizations; Industrial Sociology; Organizational Structure; Social Organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE

Organizations are composed of a variety of elements. Perhaps the fundamental component is organizational structure, the set of interrelationships (social bonds) between positions. Even organizations of globe-encircling proportions, such as multinational corporations, demonstrate ‘‘the consciously coordinated activities of two or more people’’ (Barnard 1938, p. 73). Similarly, it may be argued that relationships between and among sets of such organizations form the social structure of whole societies.

Within an organizational structure, groups or sets of social relationships can be differentiated by task specialization, known as the division of labor. People are assigned to specific positions within an organizational structure to increase the specificity of tasks and the reliability with which they are performed. Organizational structure is both (1) an outcome resulting from interactive processes between elements within the organization, as well as between the environment and the organization, and (2) a determinant of those interactive processes. Organizational structure calls forth or inhibits particular behaviors by organizational participants.

Interaction among parties to a relationship results in shared understandings that become part of an organization’s culture. Focusing as it does on relationships constituting organizational structure, the social systems perspective for organizational analysis has been criticized as having a static cast. By contrast, organizational theorists contend that studying social processes among constituent parties is dynamic because it examines how social change occurs as participants grant or withhold their consent for collective actions. When the volitional and cognitive exigencies among constituents change, their behavior toward each is altered. Negotiation among organizational participants leads to the creation of new relationships, fluidity in existing relationships, and the potential for breaking off longstanding relationships. Processes influencing expectation and negotiation are complicated by the structural advantages enjoyed by dominant constituent parties. Whether change in agreed-upon relations is viewed as desirable often depends on whether a given constituent party perceives change to be disproportionately beneficial to itself when compared with the benefits to other specific constituent groups or to the overall organization. Moreover, more powerful constituents can, to their own benefit, cloud less powerful constituents’ perceptions of what is actually in the latter’s self-interest.

Much traditional theory and research on organizations, almost always implicitly (sometimes explicitly), assumes that decisions by upper participants benefit the entire collectivity. Most analyses do not differentiate benefit to the collectivity from benefit to upper-, middle-, or lower-level participants. Most researchers simply proceed on the implicit assumption that owners and managers are prime, if not sole, legitimate participants in and entitled beneficiaries of organizational structure. It is assumed, moreover, that lower-level employees in particular, and lower level participants generally, are incidental to the social construction of the organization, and are thus passive contributors to and beneficiaries of organizational structure. By contrast, modern sociological theory (as expressed throughout the present discussion of organizational structure and its correlates) increasingly differentiates among upper- , middle- , and lowerlevel participants as well as, separately, the organization as a whole. Thus, in this view, a much broader array of constituents contributes directly

or indirectly to organizational survival and therefore merit an appropriate share of rewards. Researchers need explicitly to identify and differentiate all participants and constituents that contribute directly or indirectly to an organization. Allocation of resources to an organization’s tasks, defined through the division of labor, critically affects the power balance between participants, thus raising important and politically disturbing questions. Organizational structure, composed of collectively endorsed and enacted resource allocation agreements, can be usefully understood from an ‘‘organizational justice’’ perspective.

Organizational justice research seeks to understand how resources are allocated in ways believed to be ‘‘fair’’ by various interactants. The perceived fairness of resource allocations by organizational participants is distributive justice; the perceived fairness of the process through which resource allocation decisions are made is procedural justice. Both distributive justice and procedural justice interact to influence organizational participants’ perceptions of fairness. Distributive justice may follow underlying norms of allocation, including an assessment of both the quantity and the quality of participants’ contribution to a given effort (thus, their earned equity in the organization), as well as the extent to which resources are evenly allocated among participants (thus, their right to equal treatment) and, moreover, how much participants need the resources they receive (thus, their right to basic means for survival) (Linkey and Alexander 1998). These norms underlying the allocation of resources may affect the satisfaction of organizational participants through the outcomes of allocation decisions. Procedural justice has two components: the structure and form of procedures through which resources are allocated, and the social and emotional relations between parties in an exchange relationship (interactive justice). As Brockner and Siegel (1995) point out, the difference between these two components may signal the difference between how much control participants have over the process of allocative decisions, and their intent toward others in making such decisions.

Researchers have proposed two different viewpoints to explain variations in organizational participants’ satisfaction with procedural and distributive justice. The self-interest explanation is that individuals wish to maximize their resources and

are more satisfied when their rewards are greater. The group-values explanation is that individuals evaluate themselves in the context of group membership; the perception of an individual as fair is colored by perceptions of the fairness of his or her group, and how resources are allocated to an individual indicates his or her worth relative to other members of the group. Both the self-interest and the group-values explanations have helped to explain organizational participants’ satisfaction with the allocation of resources. These two approaches are reflected in the focus of allocation rules based on the attributes and contributions of recipients (Cook and Yamagishi 1983). Attributes are personal characteristics such as gender, age, and ethnicity that are used to determine social status. Contributions refer to valued inputs made by participants in an exchange relationship; among these valued inputs are performance and effort. Classification is not always clear-cut; for example, ability might be classified as an attribute in some circumstances but as a contribution otherwise.

While most of the organizational justice literature focuses on the contributions of organizational participants, a growing number of studies focus on their attributes. Evidence suggests that the degree to which organizational participants endorse norms for resource allocation to individuals is associated with their own placement within an organizational structure. Moreover, endorsement of these norms may also vary according to demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and income, as well as cultural factors such as political affiliation and religious affiliation (Jason S. Lee and Stolte 1994; Linkey and Alexander 1998). An important question for further research is whether individuals with given attributes alter their endorsement of allocative norms as their own placement within the organization’s structure varies over the course of their own tenure in the organization. Further, satisfaction with resource allocation outcomes is associated with structural, demographic, and cultural factors (Huo et al. 1996; Irwin 1996); although the evidence for a consistent association between gender and satisfaction is mixed (e.g., Sweeney and McFarlin 1997; Lee and Fahr 1999). Given the level of ethnic and gender segregation within the workforce, particular tasks appear to be associated with certain attributes as workers are distributed into organizational positions. Additionally, institutional factors, such as

state legislation, and cultural values may affect allocators’ distribution norms. In some cases, distribution norms for external constituents related to a given organization through its impact on their culture, economy, or community may differ from distribution rules for those participating directly in an organization. These factors contribute to differential allocation of resources to participants within organizational structures, and their different perceptions of, and satisfaction with, allocation outcomes.

Blau and Scott’s cui bono criterion (1962) explicitly raises the question of who benefits from particular policies and characteristics of organizational structure. Blau and Scott suggest a fourfold topology of organizations: (1) mutual benefit organizations, such as clubs, where presumably egalitarian members are prime beneficiaries; (2) business or industrial organizations, where owners are prime beneficiaries; (3) service organizations, such as hospitals, where clients are prime beneficiaries;

(4) commonweal organizations, such as the State Department, in which the public-at-large is prime beneficiary. For each type of organization, researchers should systematically examine patterns of benefit by virtue of a constituency’s location either (1) externally in an input-output exchange relationship to the organization or (2) internally as upper- , middle- , or lower-level participants in its organizational structure (Etzioni 1961). A fully developed distributive justice perspective would evaluate the benefit a constituency derives from the organization relative to its contribution to the organization’s sustained existence (Alvarez 1979).

Not only does the allocation of resources impact organizational structure, it also affects assessments of organizational structure in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Organizational effectiveness may be defined as the capacity of an organization to produce intended and unintended outcomes. An organization may unknowingly, unintendedly, or inadvertantly serve the interest of a given constituency. Such ‘‘latent’’ functional consequences are seldom explored and documented in advance by social scientists. More usually, latent functions are discovered when they become manifest because organizational activities are dramatically altered or the organization ceases to exist, with the consequence that former latent beneficiaries are severely affected. Indeed, previously unrecognized support from such latent beneficiaries may have

been critical to organizational well-being (perhaps survival), and the disaffection of such beneficiaries might threaten future organizational survival. But the concept of ‘‘latent’’ functions has not yet produced a research literature.

Notwithstanding vexing conceptual problems raised by the issue of ‘‘latency,’’ research on organizational effectiveness has traditionally overemphasized manifest purposive action, by reference to the organization’s intended outcomes (or formal goals). It is obvious, but critical to note, that if the organization goes out of existence, it can no longer accomplish anything. Hence, perhaps the most important task (latent or manifest) for any organization is its continued survival. While some organizations are designed, and are prepared from the outset, to go out of existence upon completion of the task for which they were initially created, many, perhaps most, organizations are quick to acquire new purposes so as to maintain themselves in existence. Indeed, some organizations such as political parties and governments have been known to kill their own people in attempts to remain in existence. Thus, the ‘‘cost’’ per se of getting things done is, at least theoretically, of no consequence in assessing organizational effectiveness. Traditionally, assessing effectiveness requires the comparison of organizational activities to an optimal standard outlined in organizational goals. Since different organizational constituencies (or stakeholders) may have different and sometimes conflicting expectations, this traditional approach has serious limitations.

By contrast, the ‘‘cost’’ of getting things done is paramount in any assessment of organizational efficiency. ‘‘Costs’’ of accomplishing any given task can be of various kinds; and each type of cost may be assessed by various techniques, with varying degrees of efficacy. Unfortunately, social science has not reached any consensus on what types of costs and benefits are worth measuring. Thus, in its broadest sense, efficiency may be viewed as the assessment of an organization’s inputs (either in kind or in the distribution of those inputs) relative to its output, in a more narrow view it is simply cost per unit of production. Traditionally, efficiency is reflected in economic analyses and cost-account- ing techniques (e.g., Rossi and Freeman 1993). However, it may reflect other kinds of resources, such as opportunity costs; risk; and political, social, and social benefits. Like effectiveness, the

attributes and positions of organizational stakeholders influence how efficiency is perceived and assessed.

This review is categorized into four functional requirements for social system survival, as posited by Parsons (1960): (1) adaptation to the environment, (2) goal attainment, (3) integration of its members into a ‘‘whole,’’ and (4) creation of cultural understandings (often latent) among members by which the meaning of collective action can be judged. We do not suggest Parsons’s AGIL scheme is the only or the definitive way to classify organizational structures or attendant activities. Rather, AGIL focuses on the totality of a particular organization (as a social system) and raises questions of how its organizational structures come into being, change, and persist; within each category we question ‘‘who benefits’’ from consensual, consciously coordinated activities.

ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT

‘‘Environment’’ refers to a broad array of elements that are ‘‘outside’’ organizational boundaries but are relevant to organizational functioning. Organizational boundaries are the set of agreedupon relationships that constitute organizational structure. Dill defines the task, or technical, environment as all features of the environment ‘‘potentially relevant to goal setting and goal attainment’’ (1958, p. 410). Established beliefs and practices embedded within the organization may systematically affect the shape and operation of the focal organization’s structure. Scott (1998) terms these influences the institutional environment of organizations; others refer to it as organizational culture. An organization may seek to control or reshape all or some elements in its environment as a means to lessen uncertainty about its capacity to endure. An organization might reshape its own organizational structures if it is unable to reshape the environment (e.g., Aldrich 1979). Dess and Beard (1984) suggest that Aldrich’s topology of environmental characteristics (1979) may be classified into three categories: (1) munificence, or the environmental availability of resources needed by organizations; (2) complexity, or the similarity or dissimilarity of environmental entities and their distribution across the environment; and

(3) dynamism, or the degree of change in the environment.

Organizations are embedded within larger societies. The societal culture (relatively integrated sets of values and value-based orientations) of a given society directly affects the kinds of organizational structures that can be sustained by organizations. Nevertheless, organizational structures and their internal organizational cultures might be a stronger determinative force than the outer societal culture. Hence, some organizations are often viewed as determinative importers of social change into some societies (e.g., technology transfers by multinational corporations). Organizational culture and the external societal culture inevitably affect one another; exploring specific nuances at the interface between these two cultural arenas is still a matter for future research. Blau (1994) notes that differential mobility among social groups may alter organizational structures, either increasing or constraining opportunities. Gains in social equity made by groups characterized by gender, ethnicity, age, or socioeconomic status may result in the alteration of organizational structures. The ability of workers to form coalitions both within and outside organizations may alter organizational hiring, promotion, and retention practices. Such restructuring may increase the mobility of groups in gaining more equitable organizational positions, or it may retain inequalities through the eventual resegregation of occupations (Cohen et al. 1998).

Neither effectiveness nor efficiency is an unalloyed universal good. As given constituencies gain stature and power, they are able to reform, reconstitute, or create relationships accordingly; but what makes one constituency more effective and/or more efficient may impact negatively on either the effectiveness or the efficiency of another. Hence, while not its sole determinant, the net balance of power between constituencies is an important variable in the formation and maintenance of organizational structure. When environmental conditions remain relatively constant, the stratification of organizational structure may also remain relatively constant as it is being reified, recreated, and reenacted, given that those already well placed are advantaged within each new round of structured interactions. However, when environmental conditions are visited by strong or rapid changes for example, in political culture, technology, or rapid changes (for example, in political culture, technology, or demographic characteristics), these may precipitate renegotiation and

recalibration of social structures within the organization. Because modern organizations seldom resemble a zero-sum model, not all gains by one constituency constitute a loss for another. However, unless the organization continues to grow, prosper, and reward formerly well-rewarded constituencies, a sense of relative deprivation due to perceived loss of effectiveness and efficiency in obtaining organizational rewards may lead to intergroup conflict.

Thus, organizations are affected by the exchange of resources between organizations and various constituencies, including those providing resource inputs to an organization, the exchange of labor for wages, and those between organizations and consumers of outputs. Environmental pressures, including competition for resources, may influence organizations to change structure, including strategic alliances, mergers, joint ventures, downsizing, and divestitures. Organizations may choose to maintain or change relationships on the basis of competition, power to create stable market relations, and institutional attachments through interpersonal and interorganizational relationships (Baker et al. 1998). Such changes presumably allow organizations more flexibility in responding to turbulent and uncertain environments, and each changes the stance of an organization in relation to others that compete for related resources in a market. This is accomplished by increased organizational efficiency, in which decreased labor force size, or hierarchy, and increased organizational interdependence results in fewer costs in producing outputs. The impacts of such strategies have been consequential for workers’ expectations of long-term connections to workplaces, and expectations about their careers. Workers increasingly expect duties to be assigned on the basis of experience and training rather than organizational structure (Powell 1996). Pugh and Hickson (1996) argue that as organizational environments become more turbulent and uncertain, organizations require a ‘‘redundancy of function’’ in which individuals are called on to have a wide variety of skills and fill multiple functions in a highly interdependent environment. Thus, workers develop flexible organizational ‘‘roles’’ rather than fulfilling a function based on a hierarchical position (Powell 1996). Older and younger workers may experience a sense of relative deprivation as a result of changes in organizational structure

and as their own expectations of future employment opportunities decrease (Lerner 1996). Lerner concludes that procedural justice in organizational restructuring has not led to distributive justice in terms of employment opportunities and expectations.

The state (the system of governance in a society) is another global element with pervasive repercussions for organizational functioning. The state may regulate the organizations directly by instituting programs within them or indirectly by state regulation of what an organization may produce or how it may transact with other organizations such as suppliers or consumers. Organizations may attempt to influence governmental actions so that public policy does not constrain them or so that it will actively benefit them. Organizations frequently influence legislation directly, as by activities of lobbyists on retainer. Organizations often mount campaigns either to achieve or to prevent the enactment of specific legislation by directly influencing general public opinion and particular voters. Even if legislation is passed over their opposition, organizations can achieve their purposes by subsequently influencing the allocation of resources for its enforcement. Fligstein and Mara-Drita (1996) note that market relations between buyers, sellers, and the state are characterized by a power struggle in which each participant mobilizes resources to enact its own interests in maintaining (or altering) current relationships.

Communities are attentive to organizations located in their midst since changes in organizational structure can have considerable repercussions for the community at large. As Scott (1998) points out, not all organizations are strongly tied to the communities in which they are located. Locally based firms have a greater vested interest in community prosperity than do geographically dispersed firms, and they may act to assure continued community prosperity. Organizations may strongly affect the allocation of public goods and services as well as specifications in local policies, such as zoning and tax laws. Organizations may affect communities in which they are located through either implicit or explicit threats of ‘‘exit’’ as well as by directly impacting regulatory and economic conditions. The number, size, and type of organizations located in a community also have widespread consequences for individual local residents. South and Xu (1990) compared industries

that dominate their local metropolitan economy with those that do not, finding that employees in dominant industries earn higher wages. Thus, organizations have important political, economic, and normative effects on individuals with or without organizational membership and on their community’s organized power structures.

We now explore how organizations respond to and create their own environments, ‘‘Gatekeepers’’ are organizational participants at various levels who ‘‘selectively’’ permit information and people to traverse boundaries into and out of an organization. They ‘‘legitimate’’ particular environmental constituencies, with whom the organization then establishes institutional relations. Relations with constituencies not so ‘‘selected’’ become invisible, neutralized, or illegitimate. The breadth of the environmental domain that an organization claims in this manner has consequences for its stability. Narrow domains are associated with greater stability, while broad, inconsistently defined domains are associated with loss of function (Meyer 1975). At the same time, normative and regulatory forces outside organizations may exert pressures on gate-keepers to allow or disallow certain pieces of information or particular people.

‘‘Loose coupling,’’ or a seemingly weak relationship between parts of an organization (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978), is one of many ways in which organizations learn to deal with a broad environmental domain. This weak relationship allows change in one part of an organization to precipitate minimal or no change in other parts. Relationships between subunits or individuals in organizations, and relationships between the organization and other environmental entities, may be loosely coupled. Organizations may respond to potentially disruptive threats by very limited conformity in a specific sector, and yet this limited conformity projects an aura of complete organizational compliance. In reality, components of organizational structure affected by a given threat may be effectively uncoupled from many other components and processes, resulting merely in the appearance of compliance (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Loose coupling can also lead to structural ‘‘inertia’’ in an organization’s response to environmental changes, causing ‘‘lags’’ between environmental changes and adaptations to them on the part of various organizational structures. However, the degree to

which loose coupling is useful as a strategy depends on the particular situation and linkages involved. Loose coupling in terms of outsourcing labor, autonomous work teams, organizational networking, and increasingly separated divisional organizational forms have all been adopted in the last decade as a response to increased market competition and technical complexity. Such modifications of organizational structure are most often justified by upper-level participants as attempts to increase either or both the organization’s efficiency and responsiveness (effectiveness) to environmental challenges perceived to threaten organizational survival. What is left unsaid, however, is that a narrow economic conception of what constitutes efficiency or effectiveness by upper-level participants, such as executives and stockholders, may have devastating consequences for middleand lower-level participants as well as for the surrounding community. Indeed, the very fact that they are essentially disenfranchised from organizational decision making may engender a confrontational relationship with upper-level participants that may render all parties inefficient and ineffective for the process of inventing alternative problem-solving solutions that contribute to the organization’s holistic and long-term well-being.

Assessing the effectiveness of an organization’s capacity to adapt may be less focused on outcomes than on the processes of organizational change. Organizational theorists have suggested that organizational effectiveness is reflected in how well an organization acquires and processes information and with what flexibility and adaptability (Weick 1977). Galbraith (1977) contends that organizations reduce environmental complexity by changing communication structures within organizations. Other researchers suggest that organizations are effective when their subunits are congruent with the specific environment with which they interact, and when organizations overall are congruent with their environments (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967). Such perspectives of organizational effectiveness may not be linked to the achievement of goals but, from a managerial perspective, may rest in the survival, or profitability of organizations. As Lerner (and maybe others) demonstrate, such goals may not be satisfactory to middle- and lower-level participants whose employment opportunities and expectations may be adversely affected by a particular organizational adaptation.

Further, since organizational participation is affected by the demographic characteristics of participants, the specific demographic consequences (whether intended or unintended) of environmental adaptation must be examined.

Who benefits in the adaptation of organizations to the environment? Elites (fiduciaries, executives, and high-level managers) are only one kind of constituency vying for potential benefits derived from organizational structure. Middleand lower-level organizational participants are often neglected in the research literature on organizational structure. Often, when research findings indicate that either an ‘‘organization’’ or a ‘‘community’’ benefits from a particular activity, what is really meant is that upper-level participants benefit. Certain populations (women and ethnic minorities, for example) participate differentially at upper, middle, and lower levels of organizational structure; thus, a focus on upper-level participants is insufficient to fully describe patterns of benefit.

GOAL ATTAINMENT

‘‘Goal’’ refers to a desirable future state of affairs. Official goals are the formal statements put forth by organizations to state their general purposes (Perrow 1961). Operative goals, on the other hand, refer to ‘‘what the organization is actually trying to do’’ (Perrow 1961, p. 855). The degree of congruency between official and operative goals is variable. It is important to distinguish organizational goals from the motives of individual organizational participants (Simon 1964). However, researchers need to clarify how particular goal activity differentially benefits specific internal or external constituencies. Goals limit and direct organizational decision making and suggest criteria by which organizational performance can be measured.

Over time, organizations establish multiple, often disparate, and sometimes conflicting goals. Kochan and colleagues (1976) argue that goal multiplicity and conflict are associated with both horizontal (number of tasks at the same level of structure) and vertical (number of levels between the ‘‘highest’’ and ‘‘lowest’’ units) differentiation of organizational structure. In the pursuit of multiple goals, coordination of effort is necessary, leading to vertical differentiation of organizational

structure. Organizations change their goals over time, for both external and internal reasons. Thompson and McEwen (1958) contend that goals vary because interaction with elements external to the organization can be of two kinds: competitive or cooperative. The only competitive option in their discussion we call bounded competition, referring to the fact that the interaction takes place within the bounds of the normative structure (institutional environment) of the larger social system. By contrast, we conceive of raw or unbounded competition as taking place outside any normative order common to the contending parties and is not accounted for by Thompson and McEwen’s discussion. In the extreme absence of common normative understandings, hostility between contending parties can rise to a level wherein one party believes itself justified in attempts to annihilate another. Accordingly, Thompson and McEwen define competition as rivalry between two or more organizations mediated by a third party. Organizations compete for resources viewed as desirable for organizational functioning. Thompson and McEwen discuss three cooperative styles of interaction between organizations and external elements, each underscored by a decreasing level of hostility: co-optation, bargaining, and coalition. Co-optation is the absorption of an external element into the organization, neutralizing its potential hostility by incorporating it within the organization’s structure. Bargaining is direct interaction with environmental entities in which some kind of exchange takes place so that the organization can get what it desires. Coalition is an agreement, usually of specific duration for specific collective purposes, combining the efforts of two or more organizations, and restricting the right of each to set goals unilaterally. Notice that coalition requires very low levels of hostility between an organization and its partners; indeed, a potential outcome may be loss of separate identity and structural unification. These strategies can increase or decrease the size and complexity of organizational structure and the allocation of resources within it.

Organizational goals also change for internal reasons. Constituencies within the organization frequently form coalitions, initially for self-protec- tion against real or imagined threats to the pursuit of their own interests. Each unable to impose its will on others, but fearing imposition, makes alliances with other constituencies perceived to be