Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

friendly. Some such alliances capture key positions of the organizational structure, thus giving greater access to the allocation of organizational resources. This dominance can be maintained over time by securing the cooperation of other elements and coalitions within the organization through the selective distribution of resources. How central a given goal is to an organization may depend on the composition of the dominant coalition and the relative balance of power within it.

This discussion has emphasized the complexity of goals and goal setting, given a variety of internal and external factors. The processes by which groups or members of organizations gain power, and the loose coupling between goals and motivations, have a large impact on goal setting. It is useful to discuss the processes of power in organizations in more depth. Many theorists have proposed definitions of power, but it was Emerson who proposed one of the most useful: Power resides in the dependency of one on the resources of another (1962). Resource control theorists believe that individuals or organizational subunits exercise power because they allocate resources needed by others to reduce uncertainty or because their resources are specialized or are central to the workflow of the organization (Lachman 1989). Researchers have paid much attention to structural conditions associated with power in organizations. Spaeth (1985) found that resource allocation is central to task performance since lowerlevel employees are assigned to produce given outputs and are provided with the necessary resources to do so. The higher the level of the worker, the more discretionary resources she or he will have to allocate. Recently, researchers have explored the relationship between technological innovation and shifts of power among organizational members. Burkhardt and Brass (1990) found that early adopters of a computerized information system in a federal agency increased their centrality and power in organizational networks. These shifts did not completely alter the power structure since those in power were not completely displaced by early technology adopters. Barley (1986) makes clear that technology provides organizational members an occasion for structuring.’’ The same technological system may have different implications and may cause different social changes in different organizational structures. Thus, Barley disputes the claims by some researchers that

technology has objective material consequences regardless of the social contexts within which it exists.

Scott (1998) writes that organizations attempt to build structures not only to accomplish a division of labor, but also to create a structure of authority. As organizations become more formal- ized—that is, as procedures and rules are explicitly formulated—power differentials are built into the system and institutionalized. The distributive advantage of upper participants is not obvious since hierarchy is presumably built on specific task competence and power is vested for specific task achievement. Those with institutionalized power need not mobilize to have their interests served, since they control the flow of resources and information. The institutionalization of power contradicts resource control theory, which asserts that those who control the contingencies for change in organizations gain power. Lachman (1989) emphasizes that when the relative power of subunits changes, the previous power structure significantly affects the new one. He found that the greatest predictor of subunit power after organizational change was its degree of power before the change, regardless of its control over organizational contingencies or changes.

The complexity of goals within organizations creates a number of difficulties in assessing effectiveness. The use of goals as virtually the sole criterion for effectiveness places excessive focus on the outcomes, rather than the processes, of organizational activities. While some goals may be universally held within an organization, these are usually held with varying degrees of intensity by various constituencies. Moreover, multiple, and sometimes conflicting, goals are held by various organizational constituencies; notably those at different hierarchical levels, but also those defined by a variety of other factors. Goals may be difficult to operationalize for organizations such as human service agencies, and ‘‘fuzzy goals’’ may be adaptive in avoiding conflict or in concealing operative goals (Weiss 1972). Often, the evaluation of organizational effectiveness is skewed toward one or another constituency’s view of what constitute legitimate organizational goals or the priority assigned to given goals. Also, goal displacement may occur when compliance with indicators of good job performance (such as the number of calls taken per hour at a computer help desk) supplants

the intended outcome of job performance (solving computer users’ technical problems).

Accordingly, evaluation researchers have suggested a number of strategies for resolving some of the conflicts in determining and measuring goals. Stake (1975) suggests ‘‘responsive’’ evaluation that takes into account multiple and conflicting constituencies’ goals, treating each as a separate and valid view of organizational functioning. One of the goals of responsive evaluation is to inform each group of the others’ perspectives. Patton (1997) suggests a shift from goals to outcomes, focusing on expected changes, maintenance, or prevention that are the intended focus of organizational activity. Scriven (1975) suggests ‘‘goal-free’’ evaluation that focuses on only the actual, measurable outcomes of organizational activities compared to a profile of the demonstrated needs of participants. ‘‘Goal-free’’ evaluation does not include a formal elicitation of goals nor a review of formal organizational documents, but focuses instead on the needs of organizational participants, whether these are formally stated or not. The success that these alternative perspectives have in circumventing goals as the focus of effectiveness evaluation is variable, but they do constitute an acknowledgement of the difficulties in assessing organizational effectiveness solely through goal attainment.

Organizational efficiency, like effectiveness, is also tied to the attainment of organizational goals, but measures attainment against its costs. Costeffectiveness analysis measures the monetary benefits of a program against the financial costs of implementing it. Cost-benefit analysis can estimate the broadly conceived benefits of a program versus its various costs, but usually also monetizes the benefits and compares them. Not only do these types of analyses face the same challenges described above in determining how the effectiveness of organizational activity is to be determined, they must choose a cost-accounting perspective that also reflects a particular ‘‘interest group’’ perspective. Freeman and Rossi (1993) describe three cost-accounting perspectives: (1) The individual level weighs costs, benefits, and effectiveness from the perspective of the unit targeted by an organization (people, groups, or organizations).

(2) The program sponsor level takes the perspective of the sponsor in valuing benefits and accounting for costs, and examines the profitability of a

given organizational activity. 3) The communal (or societal) perspective assesses both the direct and the indirect effects of organizational activity in a broad context and for a wide variety of participants. Both upper-level organizational participants and researchers have overemphasized the pro- gram-sponsor perspective, emphasizing short-term impacts and economic outcomes and short-chang- ing factors that are integral to self-perceived wellbeing of often less powerful constituencies, such as the impact on their psychic, social, cultural, or political condition. Recent developments in ‘‘socioeconomics’’ seek to develop theoretical approaches that may bring these considerations under systematic analysis (Etzioni 1990, 1996, 1998; Granovetter 1985, 1992; Granovetter and Swedberg 1992). Monetizing such factors is difficult and controversial, but the costs and benefits of broader social and cultural factors both in monetary and other forms is included in efficiency studies using the communal perspective.

Economic analyses, however, frame their results in a monetary context for use by managers or policy makers, framing outcomes in ways that are less relevant to midand low-level workers, who do not control the allocation of resources. Additionally, it is difficult (and controversial) to monetize benefits, especially those involving complex social contexts, such as cultural and political changes. It may be difficult to combine multiple and/or conflicting goals in economic analyses, including the unintended consequences of organizational action. Finally, by definition, economic analysis takes an incremental approach to change, assuming that benefit is achieved if the benefits outweigh the costs. For some kinds of organizational activities, an incremental approach toward cost-effective- ness or cost-benefit analysis may not be appropriate if a partial change in outcomes is not desirable. For example, many programs designed to prevent drug use do not measure outcomes in terms of decreased drug use among participants, but in the extent to which total nonuse of drugs may be effectuated.

Setting and attainment of goals are complex processes affected by factors internal and external to organizations and by processes for power distribution. The cui bono criterion alerts the researcher not to take formal goals at face value but to identify how key actors and groups in coalitions

differentially benefit from goal activity. In spite of its tendency to persist, organizational structure can be and is altered to reflect the power of new alliances among internal and external constituencies who benefit from new institutional arrangements. Organizations survive because powerful constituent alliances continue to derive benefit from them.

THE INTERNAL INTEGRATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Organizations cohere in part because some elements of organizational structure are designated to coordinate other organizational elements into a collective ‘‘whole’’ in the pursuit of goals. This discussion of integration will examine (1) how some organizational variables affect composition of organizational structural; (2) structure’s differential outcomes for stratified groups; and (3) who benefits from integration.

One factor important to integrating organizational members is technology, knowledge about how to get things done. Organizations often must increase coordination to achieve technically complicated tasks. Galbraith (1977) notes four mechanisms for increasing task coordination: (1) Rules standardize both acceptable actions and agreedupon ends. (2) Schedules coordinate interdependent activities or multiple activities occurring at the same time. (3) Departmentalization routinizes the division of labor by grouping homogeneous tasks together. (4) Organizational hierarchy helps to coordinate tasks that are interrelated among departments. Organizational size can be an important factor affecting internal structure. Several measures have been used for size, including the physical plant, number of clients, or number of employees (Kimberly 1976). Most researchers have treated size as a determinant of organizational structure. It can be an indicator of demand for organizational services or products, providing constraints or opportunities for structural change.

These two variables are related to a number of structural outcomes, the most important of which are complexity or differentiation, formalization, and centralization. Complexity is the diversity of factors that must be simultaneously coordinated to get a task done. Horizontal differentiation is the

specification of component elements of tasks performed at the same level of organizational structure. Vertical differentiation is the number of levels of importance, power, and control among units. Multiple and complex technologies are associated with increased structural differentiation (Dewar and Hage 1978). Increased size (number of participants) is necessary to achieve high degrees of structural differentiation, although a large organization may be minimally differentiated and simply coordinated. Nevertheless, larger organizations are generally more structurally differentiated and more complexly coordinated (cf. Blau and Schoenherr 1971).

Formalization is the extent to which rules for behaviors and relations in organizations are explicitly specified for participants directly or indirectly associated with particular tasks. This means that formalized positions have standardized powers and duties, regardless of the particular individual incumbent. Organizations with routine technology have a greater degree of formalization (Dornbusch and Scott 1975) at a more minute level of detail. Glisson (1978) contends that routinized technology may produce greater formalization. Formalization, however, is only moderately associated with organizational size (e.g., Blau and Schoenherr 1971).

Centralization refers to the extent to which decision making in an organization is concentrated or dispersed. Dornbusch and Scott (1975) point out that organizations may engage multiple technologies that vary in terms of clarity, predictability, and efficacy. Tasks high on these dimensions are more likely to be centralized, but tasks low on the dimensions are likely to be allocated to specialists, decentralizing organizational authority. Centralization through rules is associated with use of routine technology (Hage and Aiken 1967). There is an inverse relationship between size and centralization: Larger organizations tend to decentralize decision making.

Recent organizational restructuring in the United States has resulted in some organizations becoming ‘‘smaller’’ in size than they were three decades ago. The adoption of new technologies including computer-assisted production and just- in-time inventory systems have resulted in a decrease in vertical hierarchy, and a flattened lateral

hierarchy. At the same time, the complexity of the technology and the need for increased coordination has increased interdependence of organizational subunits or ‘‘teams,’’ while centralization has decreased (Galbraith and Lawler 1993). Reengineering technologies has often resulted in changing the processes of work, rather than directly changing organizational structures, but has contributed to the increasingly interdependent relations among organizational subunits (Keidel 1994). Such reengineering has led to flexibility in team function, resulting in ‘‘semistructures’’ in which some aspects of performance are prescribed, but the processes through which teams operate are not (Brown and Eisenhardt 1995). Scott (1998) notes, however, that the resources needed to successfully alter structure to function in a more lateral, independent fashion are considerable, and many organizations do not have the resources to make this kind of structural transformation.

Consistently with generalized values in the host society, organizational structure has differential outcomes for people of diverse identities. Labor theorists offer various explanations for occupational segregation, the organizational practice of reserving specific kinds of jobs for people of given ethnicity or gender. Occupational segregation results in lower earnings in jobs traditionally held by relatively powerless groups-minority men and white and minority women. Kaufman (1986) found that black men were more likely than white men to be employed in highly routinized, less skilled jobs and were less likely to be in job ladders involving increasing levels of status dominance over other workers. Tienda and colleagues (1987) found that, although women’s earnings increase as they move into jobs traditionally held by males, male incumbents experience a greater increase in earnings than their female counterparts. Some researchers contend that market forces have created an occupationally segregated labor force, while others believe that organizational practices are responsible. Bridges and Nelson (1989) argue that altbough market forces produce gender-related inequalities (as expected), these are exacerbated by intraorganizational decisions resulting in preservation of occupational segregation.

Although hierarchy appears to be determined rationally by high-level managers and by owners, labor theorists reveal that organizational structure

has differential outcomes for people based on ethnicity and gender. Further, the structural inequalities between wages and perquisites for workers at various levels of the organization may be quite large and not necessary to maintain a taskoriented division of labor on which an organization’s survival might depend. Marxists, work redesign theorists, and researchers exploring organizational ‘‘structuring’’ explicitly address how organizations benefit, or fail to benefit, worker categories. These perspectives challenge the presumption of rationality for organizational structures imbalanced in favor of a given constituency. Problems in assessing benefit are due to the assumption that managers or the environment determine what middle and lower participants do without exploring resistance to more generally beneficial institutional policies by upper participants. Researchers examining the impact of variables such as size on formalization frequently exclude human agents, and thereby reify organizational structure. Such research fails to give due consideration to how organizational structuring might account for these phenomena. To the extent that workers successfully and persistently subvert, modify, or resist organizational structuring of their activities, researchers cannot justify the assumption that structure is the sole result of owner, managerial, or environmental influences.

LATENT FACTORS IN STRATEGIC

PLANNING

Values guide and give meaning to activities. A set of activities, however, may be variously interpreted from alternative value perspectives. Activities that are rational and meaningfully appropriate for an organizational task (in a bank, for example) may also be in substantial congruity with prescriptions and proscriptions of, say, an ostensibly unrelated religious organization serving the same client population. This hidden or latent positive affinity might make a bank clerk appear particularly productive as new customers are attracted to the bank and give favorable reactions for service received from the bank in spite of, rather than because of, role performance as bank clerk. The latent import could be negative, in which case the bank clerk might look particularly unproductive.

Although there is no assurance an organizational structure staffed with a demographically

diverse population has a higher probability of survival, rational theorists believe its chances are increased. As an organization takes in participants with demographic characteristics different from those of previous participants, modalities of personal values at different participant levels will change. This creates a latent potential for future pressure to change goals and procedures. For effective long-term strategic planning, decision makers are well advised to consider implications of alternative demographic concentrations among actual or potential external constituencies and among each internal participant level. Cultivation of new markets to absorb organizational output may require recruitment from populations with new attributes as much as recruitment from new populations to reduce labor costs may require acceptance of new types of participant contributions. Such changes inherently precipitate structural change. An organization that sets narrow limits to organizational culture may as a latent consequence inadvertently limit its capacity to adapt to altered environmental conditions and thus decrease its capacity to survive.

Research examining the link between organizational culture and effectiveness has reflected managerial interest in improving organizational performance through the control and directed change of organizational culture. Research examining the link has been mixed, finding a direct relationship between the two (e.g., Petty et al. 1995), examining culture as a set of mediating variables in organizational performance (e.g., Saffold 1988), and finding no relationship between the two (e.g., Reynolds 1986). While most studies have examined factors internal to organizations in the construction of culture, some have examined the links between culture and organizational markets, networks, and environmental factors (e.g., Burt et al. 1994). One reason for the mixed findings in the association between organizational culture and effectiveness is a difficulty in defining and measuring culture. Culture has been variously defined as underlying shared values and beliefs among participants (Schein 1991); meanings of actions among individual participants (Golden 1992), and means of governing transactions among individual participants (Ouchi 1980). Culture has therefore been measured in terms of strength, meaning the congruence of managerial beliefs to managerial practices (Denison 1990);

individual practices, affect, and cognitions (Silvester et al. 1999); and organizational types governing transactions among participants, which exhibit traits such as the degree of hierarchy or flexibility (Ouchi 1980). These differences in the definitions of culture and in its measurement account for some of the variability of findings in the organizational culture literature. Additionally, differences in organization types and criteria of effectiveness may also account for differential findings of the link between culture and organizational performance. A struggle between proponents of qualitative and quantitative methods has led to a bifurcated literature and a lack of multimethod studies examining the complexities of organizational culture (Martin and Frost 1996). Most studies on organizational culture and effectiveness focus on overall performance, profit, and productivity from the perspectives of the organizational elite, upper management, and administrators while purporting to describe a ‘‘whole’’ organization’s culture and outcomes.

While organizational culture is both an important result and a determinant of organizational structure, it appears to have been given both narrow and exaggerated importance by writers whose focus is on profit-making organizations. In the mid1980s researchers contended that centralized control of corporate culture by managers was correlated with organizational success (e.g., Deal and Kennedy 1982). Meyerson and Martin (1987) call this the integrationist perspective, but argue that organizational theory has encompassed at least two other perspectives, the differentiation perspective and the fragmentation perspective. The differentiation perspective acknowledges that there may be ‘‘nested’’ cultures and subcultures within organizations that may embrace different forms, ideologies, and rituals. The fragmentation perspective observes that clearly conflicting cultural understandings and practices in organizations may exist, and may shift as coalitions form around specific tasks and as organization members deal with the ambiguity of their tasks.

Martin (1992) notes that one or all of these cultural characteristics may be present within organizations, but that participants’ positions throughout the organizational structure may affect how they perceive an organization’s culture. Management may take an integrationist view of culture,

seeing it as a way of controlling and coordinating organizational activity. Rank-and-file workers may be more likely to adopt a differentiation perspective instead, and those whose jobs are characterized by a high degree of ambiguity and environmental uncertainty may be more likely to adopt a fragmentation perspective. The issue here is how much of values essential to its own well-being each constituency will surrender in return for real or imagined benefits derived from continued organizational participation. Upper participants are only one constituency potentially benefiting from organizational culture. Other constituencies may use it as a vehicle to express resistance to, or interest in, a wide array of organizational and environmental conditions. If upper participants seek effectiveness in goal achievement and efficient productivity for increased profits, lower participants might seek security of employment and quality of working conditions. Participants may see the organization as a forum within which each subgroup expresses its own array of self-interests for potential incorporation into organizational culture in the context of collective, perhaps universal, concern for organizational survival. Depending on their relative power (location) within the organization’s structure, constituents may be limited in the degree to which they can enact and establish understandings about the distribution of rewards (of various kinds including but not limited to economic rewards) relative to their own structural positions and to their self-perceived contributions to organizational survival.

If participants decide the distribution of rewards is unsatisfactory or inequitable relative to some other comparison group or individual, relative deprivation theorists argue that participants will then attempt systemic or individual remedies. Indeed, lower participants may choose to treat ‘‘official’’ cultural accounts with disbelief or to subvert them (Smircich 1983). The form that perceived unfairness takes influences the actions that people are likely to take; Skarlicki and Folger (1997) found that if participants perceive organizations as having low procedural justice and low distributive justice, they are more likely to take retributive action against an organization for perceived injustices than those who believe that only procedural or distributive justice is low. However, researchers have failed to demonstrate how unfavorable comparisons cause behavioral outcomes.

Historically, groups of workers have understood existence of ethnicity and gender inequality in the work place, but not all groups have taken steps to remedy the problems. The organizational justice perspective may allow exploration of organizational structuring as a process in which agency exists on the parts of participants and constituents of organizations at both aggregate and individual levels in accord with their cultural orientation.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Current theory and research on organizational structure have been characterized by both managerial determinism and by a vague environmental determinism used to exonerate owners and managers from detrimental consequences of their structural designs upon middle and lower participants within the organization. Owners and higher-level managers often overemphasize short-term gains achieved by production and managerial techniques undermining relative empowerment of lower participants. On their behalf, organizational theorists and researchers contribute unwittingly to intensification of unnecessary control over workers, consumers, community residents, and other types of participants (Clegg 1981). Research guided by a organizational justice perspective may reduce an overemphasis on the competitive advantage of upper participants (disguised as advantage by the organization against external adversaries) and open new vistas on cooperative actions beneficial to all participants and related to the perceived value of their contributions to organizational survival. In the final analysis, perhaps the only justification for rewards received by a category of organizational participants is the contribution it makes to the essential task of organizational survival (Alvarez 1979).

(SEE ALSO: Complex Organizations; Work and Occupations;

Professions)

REFERENCES

Aldrich, Howard E. 1979 Organizations and Environments. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Alvarez, Rodolfo 1979 ‘‘Institutional Discrimination in Organizations and Their Environments.’’ In R. Alvarez and K. Lutterman, eds., Discrimination in Organizations: Using Social Indicators to Manage Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Baker, Wayne E., Robert R Faulkner, and Gene A. Fisher ‘‘Hazards of the Market: The Continuity and Dissolution of Interorganizational Market Relationships.’’ American Sociological Review 63(2):147–177.

Barnard, Chester I. 1938 The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Barley, Stephen R. 1986 ‘‘Technology as an Occasion for Structuring: Evidence from Observations of CT Scanners and the Social Order of Radiology Departments.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 31:78–108.

Blau, Peter M. 1994 The Structural Contexts of Opportunities. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

———, and Richard Schoenherr 1971 The Structure of Organizations. New York: Basic Books.

Blau, Peter, and W. Richard Scott 1962 Formal Organizations. New York: John Wiley.

Bridges, William P., and Robert L. Nelson 1989 ‘‘Markets in Hierarchies: Organizational and Market Influences on Gender Inequality in a State Pay System.’’

American Journal of Sociology 95:616–658.

Brockner, Joel, and Phyllis Siegel. 1995 ‘‘Understanding the Interaction Between Procedural and Distributive Justice: The Role of Trust.’’ In Roderick M. Kramer and Tom R. Tyler, eds., Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Brown, Shona L., and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt 1995 ‘‘Product Innovation as Core Capacity: The Art of Continuous Change.’’ Academy of Management Review

20(2):343–375.

Burkhardt, Malene E., and Daniel J. Brass 1990 ‘‘Changing Patterns or Patterns of Change: The Effects of a Change in Technology of Social Network Structure and Power.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 35:104–127.

Burt, Ronald S., Shaul M. Gabbay, Gerhard Holt, and Peter Moran 1994 ‘‘Contingent Organization as a Network Theory: The Culture-Performance Contingency Function.’’ Acta Sociologica 37:345–370.

Clegg, Stewart 1981 ‘‘Organization and Control.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 33:24–60.

Cohen, Lisa E., Joseph E. Brosehak, and Heather A. Haveman 1998 ‘‘And Then There Were More? The Effect of Organizational Sex Composition on the Hiring and Promotion of Managers.’’ American Sociological Review 63:711–727.

Cook, Karen S., and Toshio Yamagishi 1983 ‘‘Social Determinants of Equity judgments.’’ In David M. Messick and Karen Cook, eds., Equity Theory. New York: Praeger.

Deal, Terrence, and Allan Kennedy 1982 Corporate Cultures. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Dess, Gregory G., and Donald W. Beard 1984 ‘‘Dimensions of Organizational Task Environment.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 29:52–73.

Denison, D. 1990 Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness. New York: John Wiley.

Dewar, Robert D., and Jerald Hage 1978 ‘‘Size, Technology, Complexity and Structural Differentiation: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 23:111–136.

Dill, William R. 1958 ‘‘Environment as an Influence on Managerial Autonomy.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 2:409–443.

DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell 1983 ‘‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.’’ American Sociological Review 147–160.

Dornbusch, Sanford M., and W. Richard Scott 1975

Evaluation and the Exercise of Authority. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Emerson, Richard M. 1962 ‘‘Power-Dependence Relations.’’ American Sociological Review 31–40.

Etzioni, Amitai 1961 A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organization. New York: Free Press.

———1990 ‘‘A New Kind of Socio-Economics (The Ascent of Socio-Economics).’’ Challenge 33(1):31.

———1996 ‘‘How to Make a Humane Market: Quality of Life or Economic Success?’’ New Statesman 127(4412):25–28.

———1998 ‘‘A Communitarian Note on Stakeholder Theory.’’ Business Ethics Quarterly 8(4):679.

Fligstein, Neil, and Iona Mara-Drita 1996 ‘‘How to Make a Market: Reflections on the Attempt to Create a Single Market in the European Union.’’ American Journal of Sociology 102:1–33.

Freeman, David M., and Peter Rossi 1993 ‘‘Using Theory to Improve Program and Policy Education.’’ Social Forces 71(4):1102–1103.

Galbraith, Jay 1977 Organization Design. Reading, Mass.:

Addison-Wesley.

———, and Edward E. Lawler, III (eds.) 1993 Organizing for the Future: The New Logic for Managing Complex Organizations. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.

Glisson, Charles 1978 ‘‘Dependence of Technological Routinizations of Structural Variables in Human Service Organizations.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 23:383–395.

Golden, K. A. 1992 ‘‘The Individual and Organizational Culture: Strategies for Action in Highly-Ordered Contexts.’’ Journal of Management Studies 29:1–21.

Granovetter, Mark 1985 ‘‘Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.’’ American Journal of Sociology 91:481–510.

——— 1992 ‘‘Economic Institutions as Social Constructions: A Framework for Analysis.’’ Acta Sociologica 35(1):3–12.

———, and Richard Swedberg 1992 The Sociology of Economic Life. San Francisco: Westview.

Hage, Jerald, and Michael Aiken 1967 ‘‘Relationship of Centralization to Other Structural Properties.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 12:72–91.

Huo, Juen J., Heather J. Smith, Tom R. Tyler, and E. Allan Lind 1996 ‘‘Superordinate Identification, Subgroup Identification, and Justice Concerns: Is Separatism the Problem; Is Assimilation the Answer?’’

Psychological Science 7(1):40–45.

Irwin, Sarah 1996 ‘‘Age Related Distributive Justice and Claims on Resources.’’ British Journal of Sociology

47(1):68–92.

Kaufman, Robert L. 1986 ‘‘The Impact of Industrial and Occupational Structure on Black-White Employment Allocation.’’ American Sociological Review 310–323.

Keidel, Robert W. 1994 ‘‘Rethinking Organizational Design.’’ Academy of Management Executives 8(4):12–30.

Kimberly, John 1976 ‘‘Organizational Size and the Structuralist Perspective.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 29:571–597.

Kochan, Thomas, George Cummings, and Larry Huber 1976 ‘‘Operationalizing the Concepts of Goals and Goal Incompatibility in Organizational Behavior Research.’’ Human Relations 29:544–577.

Lachman, Alan 1989 ‘‘Power from What?’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 34:231–251.

Lawrence, Paul R., and Jay W. Lorsch 1967 Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration. Boston: Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Lee, Cynthia, and Jiing-Lih Farh 1999 ‘‘The Effects of Gender in Organizational Justice Perception.’’ Journal of Organizational Behavior 20:133–143.

Lee, Jason S., and John F. Stolte 1994 ‘‘Cultural and Structural Determinants of Justice Reactions in the Economic Domain.’’ Social Behavior and Personality

22(4):319–328.

Lerner, Melvin J. 1996 ‘‘Victims without Harmdoers: Human Casualties in the Pursuit of Corporate Efficiency.’’ In Leo Montada and Melvin J. Lerner, eds.,

Current Societal Concerns about Justice. New York: Plenum.

Linkey, Helen, and Sheldon Alexander 1998 ‘‘Need Norm, Demographic Influence, Social Role, and Justice Judgement.’’ Current Psychology 17(2–3):152–162.

Martin, Joanne 1992 Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press.

———, and Peter Frost 1996 ‘‘The Organizational Culture War Games: a Struggle for Intellectual Dominance.’’ In Stewart R. Clegg, Cynthia Hardy, and Walter R. Nord, eds., Handbook of Organizational Studies. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Meyer, Marshall W. 1975 ‘‘Leadership and Organizational Structure.’’ American Journal of Sociology

81:514–542.

Meyerson, D., and J. Martin 1987 ‘‘Cultural Change: An Integration of Three Different Views.’’ Journal of Management Studies 24:623–647.

Oliver, Amalya 1997 ‘‘On the Nexus of Organizations and Professions: Networking through Trust.’’ Sociological Inquiry 67(2):227–245.

Ouchi, William G. 1980 ‘‘Markets, Bureaucracies and Clans.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 25:129–141.

Parsons, Talbot 1960 Structure and Process in Modern Society. New York: Free Press.

Patton, Michael Quinn 1997 Utilization-Focused Evalua-

tion. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Perrow, Charles 1961 ‘‘The Analysis of Goals in Complex Organizations.’’ American Sociological Review

26:854–866.

Petty, M. M., A. Beadles, II, Christopher M. Lowery, Deborah F. Chapman, and David W. Connell 1995 ‘‘Relationships between Organizational Culture and Organizational Performance.’’ Psychological Reports 76:483–492.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik 1978 The External Control of Organizations. New York: Harper and Row.

Powell, Walter W. 1996 ‘‘The Capitalist Firm in the 21st Century: Emerging Patterns.’’ Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, New York, August.

Pugh D. S., and D. J. Hickson 1996 Writers on Organizations, 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Reynolds, P. D., 1986 ‘‘Organizational Culture as Related to Industry, Position, and Performance: A Preliminary Report.’’ Journal of Management Studies

23:333–345.

Rossi, Peter H., and Howard E. Freeman 1993 Evaluation: A Systematic Approach. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Saffold, G. S., III 1988 ‘‘Culture Traits, Strength, and Organizational Performance.’’ Academy of Management Review 12(4):546–558.

Schein, Edgar H. 1991 ‘‘What is Culture?’’ In Peter J Frost, Larry F. Moore, Meryl Reis Louis, Craig C.

Lundber, and Joanne Martin, eds., Reframing Organizational Culture. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Scott, W. Richard 1998 Organizations. Englewood Cliffs,

N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Scriven, Michael 1972 ‘‘Pros and Cons about Goal-Free Evaluation.’’ Evalaution: The Journal of Educational Evaluation (Center for the Study of Evaluation, UCLA) 3(4):1–7.

Silvester, Joanne, Neil R. Anderson, and Fiona Patterson 1999 ‘‘Organizational Culture Change: An InterGroup Attributional Analysis.’’ Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 72:1–23.

Simon, Herbert A. 1964 ‘‘On the Concept of Organizational Goals.’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 9:122.

Skarlicki, Daniel P., and Robert Folger 1997 ‘‘Retaliation in the Workplace: The Roles of Distributive, Procedural, and Interactional Justice.’’ Journal of Applied Psychology 82(3):434–443.

Smircich, Linda 1983 ‘‘Organizations as Shared Meanings.’’ In Louis Pondy, ed., Organizational Symbolism. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI.

South, Scott J., and Woman Xu 1990 ‘‘Local Industrial Dominance and Earnings Attainment.’’ American Sociological Review 55:591–599.

Spaeth, Joe L. 1985 ‘‘Job Power and Earnings.’’ American Sociological Review 50:603–617.

Stake, Robert E. 1975 Evaluating the Arts in Education: A Responsive Approach. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill.

Sweeney, Paul D., and Dean B. McFarlin 1997 ‘‘Process and Outcome: Gender Differences in the Assessment of Judgement.’’ Journal of Organizational Behavior 18:83–98.

Thompson, James D., and William McEwen 1958 ‘‘Organizational Goals and Environments: Goal Setting as an Interaction Process.’’ American Sociological Review 23:23–31.

Tienda, Marta, Shelley A. Smith, and Villma Ortiz 1987 ‘‘Industrial Restructuring, Gender Segregation, and Sex Differences in Earnings.’’ American Sociological Review 52:195–210.

Weick, Karl E. 1977 ‘‘Re-Punctuating the Problem.’’ In Paul S. Goodman and Johnnes M. Pennings, eds.,

New Perspectives on Organizational Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Weiss, Carol H. 1972 Evaluation Research: Methods of

Assessing Program Effectiveness. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:

PrenticeHall.

RODOLFO ALVAREZ

LEAH ROBIN

ORGANIZED CRIME

NOTE: Although the following article has not been revised for this edition of the Encyclopedia, the substantive coverage is currently appropriate. The editors have provided a list of recent works at the end of the article to facilitate research and exploration of the topic.

Organized crime is considered one of the most serious forms of crime for two reasons: (1) It is so often lucrative and successful; and (2) it is so difficult to counteract. In the broadest terms, organized crime can be viewed as any form of group conduct designed to take advantage of criminal opportunities, whether on a one-time or a recurring basis. More commonly, the label organized crime has more restricted usage.

It should not be a surprise to find criminals associating for the purpose of committing crime. The achievement of goals through cooperative efforts is a common element of contemporary life. Association with other criminals creates an interesting dilemma for the individual criminal. Having coconspirators increases the visibility of criminal conduct, the risks of apprehension, and, upon apprehension, the risk of betrayal. On the other hand, some types of criminal opportunities can be exploited only through group behavior. Offenders who fail to join with others may thereby limit their rewards from criminal conduct. For organized crime to persist, it must function both to overcome the risks of associating with others and result in positive benefits and increased rewards for those who participate.

No one knows how much organized crime is committed every year. Rather than being measured in numbers of events, the significance of organized crime is generally recorded in the dollar volume of activities. Some have argued that revenue estimates for organized crime are advanced more in the interest of drama than of accuracy, but the estimates are nonetheless staggering. For example, annual revenue from the sale of drugs is placed in the $40 to $60 billion range, and annual revenue from illicit gambling operations, at $20 to $40 billion.

Organized crime is unlikely to be reflected in official crime statistics for three reasons: first, crime statistics record information about individual criminal events rather than about the individuals or groups committing them; second, many of

the activities of organized crime groups involve socalled victimless crimes where no report of a crime is made; and third, persons who are victimized by organized crime groups may be unlikely or unwilling to come forward and report their victimization.

Organized crime is best understood by examining the nature of ongoing criminal organizations, their activities, and societal response to the behavior of these organizations. A secondary use of the term, referring to criminal support systems that aid all offenders, is also briefly noted.

ONGOING CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS

Organized crime usually refers to the activities of stable groups or gangs that commit crimes on an ongoing basis. While not all group crime is properly labeled ‘‘organized crime,’’ there exists no standard definition of the term. Instead, the phenomenon has been variously described as ‘‘a cancerous growth on American society’’ (Andreoli 1976, p. 21); ‘‘one of the queer ladders of social mobility’’ (Bell 1970, p. 166); ‘‘a society that seeks to operate outside the control of the American people and its governments’’ (President’s Commission 1967, p. 1); and ‘‘the product of a self-perpetuating criminal conspiracy to wring exorbitant profits from our society by any means’’ (Salerno and Tompkins 1969, p. 303).

Scholars have identified the following as elements that characterize all groups labeled as organized crime: a hierarchical organizational structure, dominated by a strong leader; a territorial imperative, exhibited in attempts to monopolize all lucrative criminal opportunities within a geographic area; a predilection to violence both to enforce internal norms and to advance economic objectives; and a desire to influence the social response to criminal conduct, as demonstrated in significant investments in public corruption. Cressey (1969) identified these latter two characteristics— the ‘‘element of enforcement’’ and the ‘‘element of corruption’’—as the essential features of organized crime.

In the United States, organized crime has been personified in ethnically based criminal organizations and, in particular, the twenty-four fictive ‘‘families’’ believed to make up the American Mafia. Joseph Valachi, in testimony before the United States Senate in 1963, revealed a sordid

and secret world in which he claimed these criminal organizations operated and prospered.

While some scholars pointed to inconsistencies in Valachi’s statements, and other criminals would later question the depth of his experience and knowledge, his testimony spawned a series of books and movies that placed Italian criminal organizations in the forefront of the public’s consciousness with respect to organized crime.

The term mafia (with either upperor lowercase letters) is used variously to apply to a secret criminal organization or to a life-style and philosophy that developed in sixteenthand seventeenthcentury southern Italy and Sicily in opposition to a series of foreign rulers who dominated the area. The life-style combines the idea of manliness in the face of adversity with an antagonism to authority and a closeness and reliance on family and clan.

Smith (1975) argues that applying the ‘‘mafia’’ label to Italian criminal organizations in the United States was both fateful and calculated. It was fateful because it imbued these organizations with international connections that there was little evidence they had. This may in turn have helped these organizations consolidate and solidify their power, in competition with other ethnic (primarily Irish) criminal organizations that were actually more prevalent in the early decades of the twentieth century. Use of the label was calculated in that it gave Italian criminal organizations a subversive and sinister character designed to ensure public support for extraordinary law enforcement efforts to eradicate these groups.

Overlooked in much of the attention paid to Mafia ‘‘families’’ was the fact that bands of brigands and smugglers, displaying many of the same organizational attributes as ‘‘mafia,’’ were well established in Elizabethan England; that criminal organizations linked to a life-style based on the primacy of male-dominated families and the concept of dignity and manliness are common in Central and latin America; and that criminal societies and associations have been successful vehicles for social mobility in many cultures, for example, the Chinese Triads or the Japanese Yakuza.

Also overlooked were some significant changes occurring during the late 1960s and early 1970s in the major cities in which the Mafia ‘‘families’’ were