12 – Social Organizations

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses social organizations. A formal organization exists and functions to reconcile the objectives that can best be achieved by group effort with the objectives of individual participants in the organization. Formal organizations arose with division of labor, which has increased the working effectiveness. Most technologies, especially those in medicine, could not have been developed or applied without a complex division of labor. Such division of labor has its costs, however, including incomplete utilization of personal interests and talents, and the need to subordinate personal idiosyncrasies to interdependence with others. Certain characteristics of the model of formal organizations bear a close resemblance to those of a biological system. Despite some similarities, a model for formal social organizations differs from that usually proposed for biological systems. While social organizations can be constructed for a great variety of purposes, much of the energy expenditure in such organizations must be devoted to standardizing the variability and reducing the conflict, which the human participants bring to an organization. Social systems are longer- and shorter-lived than biological systems. Social systems components are less tightly integrated, but can be replaced readily; however, the biological systems components wear out eventually and they cannot be replaced.