Göran Ahrne

Organization outside organizations: the significance of partial organization

It is common practice in organizational research to restrict the concept of organization to formal organizations, and to describe the world outside these entities by such other concepts as institutions or networks. It is argued in this article that the concept of organization can be fruitfully broadened to include some aspects of the order that exists outside and among organizations. A broader concept includes not only complete, formal organization, but also ‘partial organization’. Both types of organization are based on decisions, but whereas complete organizations have access to all elements of organization, partial organization is based on only one or a few of these elements. Like complete organization, partial organization is a common phenomenon that not least characterizes much of the contemporary global order. The authors discuss how partial organization arises, how and why institutions and networks sometimes become organized, and the consequences of organization for change, transparency and accountability.

How much do meta-organizations affect their members?

In the contemporary world there is a large and growing number of formal organizations. There are more states, firms and associations than ever before (Drori et al.2006). Many firms and associations transgress state boundaries and can be called international or transnational. International associations – often called “international organizations” – have spurred considerable interest from scholars studying international relations, internationalization and globalization. The interest demonstrated by scholars studying organizations in general has been weaker. Most scholars in the field of organizations studies have concentrated more on the study of firms than of associations, let alone international associations.

Book Reviews : James S. Coleman: Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990. xvi + 993 pp:

answer will be: a huge treatise on the principles of social theory, conceived in the grand tradition of methodological discourse, and with targets set high: to provide a sound conceptual and axiomatic basis for social theory. The volume is organized in five main parts, to which should be added an introductory chapter on explanation in social science. The first two parts deal with the properties of actors, authority relations, social exchange, collective behavior and norms, the third with corporate action and social choice. In the fourth part, Coleman develops his ideas on the rise of corporate

Global Projects: Institutional and Political Challenges

teens have sex and their parents’ forbidding attitude results in some distancing, which sets the stage for the separation that occurs as American teens move away from home. Whereas the first part of the book focuses on the many interviews Schalet did in Northern California and the Netherlands, the final two chapters link macro-level cultural and economic differences to micro-level attitudes about teenage sex. In these latter chapters the sociologist in Schalet emerges and she draws sophisticated connections between structure and culture to explain Dutch and American childrearing differences. She explains, for example, that the Dutch welfare state tries to prevent people from sinking into abject poverty, facilitates upward mobility of the working class, and offers many protections for teenagers. Additionally, Dutch society has managed conflicting interests through a process of accommodation and integration, which is consistent with the nation’s legalization and regulation of marijuana and prostitution. Similarly, in the Dutch family parents try to elicit consent from their children and prevent rebellion, which parents hope will facilitate successful integration of their children into adulthood. In contrast, the United States provides less economic security, which encourages self-sufficiency and raises the cost of a teenage pregnancy. Schalet notes that it is economically and psychologically beneficial for American men to separate easily from their parents, as well as romantic partners, so that they are mobile, which college and work often require. At the same time, to succeed in business young men need to respond well to uncompromising rules that are unilaterally imposed. Hence, Americans’ childrearing styles are consistent with the work cultures many teenagers will eventually encounter. While Not Under My Roof draws some excellent parallels between larger cultural and economic forces and differences in American and Dutch childrearing styles, at times Schalet tries to make connections that her data are unable to support and misses out on at least one key cultural difference. In the United States, Schalet interviewed mostly white, middle-class, two-parent families from Northern California. She limits her sample in this way so that she can make apt comparisons with a similar group of Dutch families. However, the narrow variation in her sample should have done more to limit her comments about America’s high rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs, which are disproportionately concentrated in nonwhite, single parent, low-income families. Additionally, the United States is one of the most religious industrialized nations in the world and the Netherlands is largely considered a secular country. According to the 2005 World Values Survey, 49 percent of Americans attend religious services at least once a month, but only 19 percent of the Dutch do. Even if the Northern California families Schalet interviewed did not consider themselves religious (she tried to filter out evangelical and fundamentalist Christians), the penetrating influence of America’s religious culture deserves attention, and is likely to shape differences in American and Dutch attitudes about premarital sex. Not Under My Roof does a great job of bringing into focus the clear contrasts between Dutch and American childrearing styles. This book is not just for sociologists and other academics. The writing is easily accessible and the interviews make it interesting and fun to read. A lot of parents and teens will see themselves described in the pages and will enjoy the journey with Schalet as she tries to make sense of the differences between American and Dutch views on sex during adolescence.

Book Reviews : Bjørn Hvinden: Divided Against Itself. A Study of Integration in Welfare Bureauc racy. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1994

agency, and relations between different agencies. The analysis of the problem of integration is well grounded in a discussion of a rich tradition in the sociology of organizations. It is interesting to note that Hvinden to a large extent refers to the literature of the 1950s and 1960s (for instance, March & Simon, Emerson, Blau, Thompson). He has distinguished three factors affecting the degree of horizontal integration: ’mutual awareness’, ’compatibility of perceptions and goals’ and ’interdependence’. Hvinden also distinguishes a number of factors that may cause disintegration: multiple goals and functions, the latitude enjoyed by subordinate staff, the closeness

Book Reviews : J. P. Roos & Andrej Sicinski (eds.): Ways of Life in Finland and Poland. Com parative Studies on Urban Populations. Avebury, Gower Publishing Company, 1987

the book. Furthermore, the discussion of the concept of social field would have gained from some comparisons with Habermas’s concepts ’Lebenswelt’ and ’System’. The process of a ’cultural compromise’ would have been possible to understand m the Ught of the idea of unintended consequences, that is also a topic of present theoretical relevance in the social sciences. These comments are not meant as a criticism of the book; on the contrary, they point to its richness.

Book Reviews : Carl-Ulrik Schierup and Alexandra Ålund: Will They Still Be Dancing? Integration and Ethnic Transformation Among Yugoslav Immigrants in Scandinavia. Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm 1987

In this part of the book, however, we also find two more penetrating studies. One by Adalbert Evers and Hellmut Wollman deals with big city politics and the local level of the welfare state, thus differing from the majority of the contributions by bringing into focus certain acute political struggles: although these more or less originate in the economic development, their study reminds us of the obvious that all economic development is posited politically (and vice versa), and that this has social consequences. This odd contribution also differs by taking up themes concerning the new urban sociology. The other study, by Richard V. Knight and entitled ’The Advanced Industrial Metropolis: A New Type of World City’, differs radically from the bulk of the contributions. This is an almost prophetic contribution, enthusiastically proposing

Book Reviews : Small States in Comparative Perspective. Essays for Erik Allardt. Edited by Risto Alapuro, Matti Alestalo, Elina Haavio-Manilla and Raimo Vayrynen. Norwegian University Press, Oslo 1985

This book m honour of Erik Allardt is introduced by some reflections by Ulf Himmelstrand on Scandinavian sociology and on the sociology of Erik Allardt in particular. Himmelstrand asks himself why sociology seems to prosper more on the Nordic ’periphery’ than at the centre. His tentative answer, at least as regards Finland and the sociology of Erik Allardt, is that historically the Nordic periphery has experienced more of political conflicts than its protected core. This may have