Social structure and organizations

The general topic of this chapter is the relation of the society outside or ganizations to the internal life of organizations. Part of the specific top ics have to do with the effect of society on organizations, and part of the m concern the effects of organizational variables on the surrounding social environment. I intend to interpret the term "social structure" in the titl e in a very general sense, to include groups, institutions, laws, populatio n characteristics, and sets of social relations that form the environment o f the organization. That is, I interpret "social structure" to mean any var iables which are stable characteristics of the society outside the organiza tion. By an "organization" I mean a set of stable social relations delibera tely created, with the explicit intention of continuously accomplishing som e specific goals or purposes. These goals or purposes are generally functio ns performed for some larger structure. For example, armies have the goal o f winning possible military engagements. The fulfillment of this goal is a function performed for the larger political structure, which has functional requirements of defense and conquest. I exclude from organizations many ty pes of groups which have multiple purposes (or which perform multiple funct ions for larger systems, whether these are anyone's purposes or not), such as families, geographical communities, ethnic groups, or total societies. I also exclude social arrangements built up on the spur of the moment to ach ieve some specific short-run purpose. For instance, I will not consider a c ampaign committee for some political candidate as an "organization," althou gh a political party would definitely meet the criterion of continuous func tioning and relatively specific purposes.