Renate Mayntz

The Study of Organizations

THE object of this trend report is the scientific analysis of formal, complex, or largescale organizations. Interest in such organizations dates back nearly to the beginning of sociology as a discipline. Thus, writers such as Spencer, T6nnies, or Durkheim referred explicitly to the principle of rational organization in their attempts to distinguish between types of social organization and between stages in the development of society. But this macroscopic perspective of early sociology was not conducive