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UNIT 3
THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING
Task 1. Discuss these questions with a partner.
How do you understand the term “rule”?
What have you heard about the typology of social control mechanisms developed by Amitai Etzioni?
How can you see the role of individual in our society?
STUDY SKILLS
Task 2. Work with a partner to see how much do you know about the billionaire lifestyle. Do the quiz. Check your answers on page 50.
WHO WANTS TO BE A BILLIONAIRE?
1. How many dollar millionaires are there in the world?
a 720,000 c 72 million
b 7.2 million d 720 million
2. How many dollar billionaires are there?
a 45 c 4,500
b 450 d 45,000
3. What's the world's most expensive neighbourhood to live in?
a Zuhchberg, Zurich
b Eaton Square, London
c Fifth Avenue, New York
d Motoazabu, Tokyo
4. Where can you find the highest concentration of multimillionaires per square metre?
a Monte Carlo c Nassau
b Santa Barbara d Geneva
5. With $25,000 to spend, what couldn't you afford?
a your own Boeing 747 jumbo jet for an hour
b one night in the world's most expensive hotel room – the Bridge Suite at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas
c a Harvard MBA
d 50 hours of helicopter flying lessons
6. With $2 million to spend, what would still be financially out of your reach?
a the world's most expensive watch by Chopard encrusted with over 200 carats of multicoloured diamonds
b the world's most expensive dress, embroidered with 2,000 diamonds, by Maria
Grachvogel
c a round of golf with the world's greatest golfer, Tiger Woods
d the Fender Stratocaster Sunburst guitar that Jimi Hendrix famously set fire to on stage
7. Who sold the world's most expensive yacht Katana (valued at $68 million) to buy something a little bigger?
a CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison
b Michael Jackson
c the Royal Family of Qatar
d Media mogul, Rupert Murdoch
8. Who doesn't own an island?
a entrepreneur Richard Branson
b actor Nicholas Cage
c ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher
d the Barclays Bank brothers
9. Who didn't own a Rolls-Royce?
a Vladimir Lenin
b Ayatollah Khomeini
c John Lennon
d Ronald Reagan
10. Which classic car was voted the most desirable dream machine ever?
a E-Type Jaguar
b Aston Martin DB5
c Ferrari Dino
d Porsche 911
11. A case of Chateau Le Pin cost £400 in 1983. When ready to drink in 1999, how much was it worth?
a nothing
b £400
c £12,000
d £36, 000
12. The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was bought by Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito for $82.5 million. Who was the painter?
a Picasso
b Cezanne
c Van Gogh
d Rubens
READING
Task 3. Read the text about systematic approach to the organization theory proposed by Amitai Etzioni. Write down three interesting things you remember. Compare your notes with other students.
WHY DO WE OBEY THE RULES?
Obviously, not all of our relationships with organizations are the same. The relationship between the sales clerk and the company president is quite different from the relationship between the priest and the parishioner, and both are different from the relationship between the warden and the prisoner.
Amitai Etzioni classified our relationship to different sorts of organizations in terms of the kind of power they have over us. Imagine, for example, an organization whose goal is the regular collection of garbage. Picking up garbage is a strenuous activity involving large numbers of people. The organization must persuade someone who ordinarily would not touch other people's garbage to work toward this common goal. According to Etzioni, there are three ways of doing it.
The organization can compel the acceptance of its goal by punishing any failure to perform. Compulsion is the motivating force in such organizations as prisons, forced labor camps, and military training camps. They have what Etzioni described as coercive power. The garbage collectors in this case are inmates.
The organization can buy acceptance of its goal by paying its members for picking up other people's garbage. Instead of the negative reward of punishment, there is the positive reward of cash. Motivation is achieved through remunerative power, and the organization is a business or a government department. The garbage collectors are now employees.
Individuals can accept the goal of the organization as a personal goal. They might find garbage collecting a worthwhile activity because they believe in the value of sanitation or because they personally prefer clean sidewalks and fresh air. In this case motivation comes from identification with the organizational goal, and the rewards are psychological and emotional. This organization has normative power, and the garbage collectors are voluntary participants. Garbage collecting may not attract many volunteers, but amateur rock music groups, Softball teams, and community service organizations do.
Etzioni found that an organization typically relies on one type of power to motivate its members. Workers in an automobile plant, for example, are paid for their work (remunerative power). They may identify with the company's goals, but the company does not depend on this identification (normative power) to get them to come to work in the morning. Prisons, on the other hand, rely on coercive power. Some inmates may identify with the goals of the prison and others may be paid for their labors, but the prison does not depend on its normative or remunerative power to motivate them. While many organizations exercise all three types of power, each relies primarily on only one.
To make certain that the rules are obeyed, bureaucratic organizations centralize decision making and decentralize execution. The superior decides that something should be done, and the subordinate does it. If every action of the subordinate had to wait for the direct order of the superior, however, there would have to be one supervisor for every four or five workers. If each worker had to be told individually to tighten a particular bolt every time an automobile came down the assembly line, for example, the costs in time and effort would be high and productivity would be low. Bureaucracies are efficient partly because they delegate responsibility and save the costs of close supervision. Rules and regulations take the place of supervisors' orders, and control is exercised from a distance. Once a rule is learned – "secure muffler to chassis by tightening all bolts" – one person can supervise the work of a hundred. Control by rules and regulations is most suitable for repetitive, simple work that does not provide much opportunity for creativity or the exercise of authority. Much factory work, for example, falls into this category. The lower levels of the bureaucracy are most likely to have this type of control over behaviour.
A more highly trained and educated work force needs even less direct supervision. Routine decision making can be delegated because the guidelines for making the decision have been set from above. The traffic police officer decides which driver to arrest according to the rule that everyone who exceeds the speed limit by 10 MPH is speeding. The decision to give a particular driver a ticket may be delegated, but the police officer's behaviour is still predictable. He or she can be depended upon not to give tickets to drivers who stay within the speed limit. Decentralized decision making actually increases organizational control in this way. Moreover, bureaucratic rules make personal supervision unnecessary. Whether a supervisor is there or not, the police officer will continue to make arrests for speeding. The result is greater efficiency, greater control, and lower costs for the organization.