Aantekeningen SOO:
Week 1
film Mechanic and Organic Solidarity Durkheim
DURKHEIM -> social relationships between people. IS ABOUT ORGANIC/MECHANIC SOLIDARITY IN
SOCIETY
He says in the society of the past everybody resembled everybody -> there was similarity and this
was the social cement. They glue together by mechanical solidarity. People have solidarity, because
they are similar.
Mechanical solidarity:
- Traditional society
- Interdependence through similarity
Conservatives complain! In modern societies, that cement is crumbling. In a way, Durheim degrees
but does not alarm him, because a new type in solidarity is taking shape in front of our own eyes.
Modern societies are not very similar anymore, but should not lead to believe that they do not share
solidarities; the more people differ from one another, the more they need one another are
interdependent and need one another.
This social glue is called organic solidarity interdependent should work together to get maximal
benefit (you can’t take away one specific group like teachers, because society is based on coalition
between these groups)
Organic solidarity:
- Based on differences
- Modern societies
- Interdependence through dissimilarity
The conservatives thinkers thought disappearance of solidarity through similarity is the reason why
modern societies fall to pieces, have overlooked this new form of solidarity of Durkheim (organic)
Chapter 2: Watson
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,The managerial-psychologistic strand
They both focus on ‘human nature’.
Psychologism: a tendency to explain social behaviour solely in terms of the psychological
characteristics of individuals.
Both approaches are more about manipulation than disinterested concerns with understanding.
Scientific management/Taylorism
Rationalised division of tasks and mechanisation of work had come to a point where the need to
coordinate human work efforts.
- Industrial worker was economic animal who could be encouraged to act as a self-seeking
hired hand and who would allow managers to do their job-related thinking for them.
Scientific management involves:
- The scientific analyses by management of all the tasks which need to be done in order to
make the workshop as efficient as possible.
- The design of the jobs by managers to achieve the maximum technical division of labour
through advanced job fragmentation.
- The separation of the planning of work from its execution
- The reduction of skill requirements and job-learning times to a minimum
- The minimising of materials-handling by operators and the separation of indirect or
preparatory tasks from direct or productive ones.
- The use of such devices as time-study and monitoring systems to co-ordinate these
fragmented elements and the work of the deskilled workers.
- The use of incentive payment systems both to stabilise and intensify worker effort; and
- The conduct of manager-worker relationships at ‘arm-length’ following a minimum
interaction model.
Braverman (1974) claimed that scientific management and its associated deskilling, because of its
association with the logic of capital accumulation, will continue to dominate the capitalist working
world.
Soldiering: the natural instinct and tendency from men to take it easy. Workers keep an eye on each
other so that no one will work too hard. Otherwise, the employees get higher expectations.
Systemic soldiering: when soldiering is combined with people economic interests and the failure of
managers to design, allocate and reward work on a scientific basis, it leads to employees to get
together and rationally conspire to hold production down. They do this to maximize their reward
without tempting the incompetent management to come back and tighten the rate.
By satisfying individuals self-interest, they will get full co-operation.
Psychological humanism
Achieving organisational efficiency is not through exclusion of workers from task-related decision
making but by encouraging their participation in it.
Could be seen as opposite of scientific management, but also as mirroring; theory X and theory Y
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,McGregor; theory X human beings as naturally disliking work and therefor as avoiding as they
can. People prefer to avoid responsibility and like to be giving direction. Limited ambitions and
security is priority.
Could lead to what managers want to avoid: passive acceptance of situation could be encouraged,
which could lead to lack of initiative and creativity on their part.
Theory Y people prefer to exercise self-control and self-discipline at work. Could occur if
employees were allowed to contribute creatively to organisational problems in a way in which they
could meet their need for self-actualisation.
Self-actualisation: to become self-actualised is ‘to become more and more what one is, to become
everything that one is capable of becoming’.
The self-actualisation part is from Maslow;
- Psychological needs (food/drink/sex)
- Safety needs (avoid danger)
- Love needs (belong and affiliate)
- Esteem needs (status)
- Self-actualisation (realise one’s ultimate potential)
Herzberg (1966)’s theory of ‘Motivation-Hygiene’ or two-factor theory or work motivation:
- Contextual/hygiene factors: factors like salary, status, security, working conditions can lead
to dissatisfaction if ‘wrong’, but which do not lead to satisfaction if ‘right’.
- Content/motivation factors: factors like achievement, advancement, recognition, growth,
responsibility have to be present, in addition, before satisfaction can be produced and
people motivate to perform well.
Jobs should be enlarged and managerial control reduced. Workers themselves should set targets,
plan work and choose working methods. reversal of design principles in scientific management.
People act differently in different circumstances, so it will be complex to fit in theory X and theory Y.
The Durkheim relation-strand
- Contrast of psychologism in first strand
- Focus on human individuals and the needs which they all said to share
- Emphasis on social system
- More focused on relationships between people than on the people as such
- Émile Durkheim even suicide has to be understood in terms of the extent of individual
bonding rather than referring to an individual’s mental state.
- ‘the purpose of society is to maintain stability and cohesion through successful regulation
and integration of the pre-social self into the prevailing norms and values of a society’
Anomie: a form of social breakdown in which the norms which would otherwise prevail in a given
situation cease to operate.
Durkheim was worried about the anomie in which organic integration of society would be threatened
by unrestricted individual aspirations and hence a lack of any kind of social discipline, principle or
guiding norms.
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, Example: two departments; Department A & B. Both have similar work, age, people etc. In
Department A is little staff turnover, few disputes requiring the union representatives, low level of
sickness absence. In Department B there were regular disputes and some of these leading to short
strikes.
Why? Department A had strong bonding between colleagues. Most of them were friends or married
even. In department B they were complete strangers.
Human relations could lead to a minimum or maximal benefit of organizing.
Linked to suicide science in which non-divorced people killed themselves less often than
divorced people and single people more than married people. Also, members of more
individualistic religions (Protestantism) more than members of more communal religions.
Conclusion: suicide occurred less in context of solidarities than in anomic circumstances.
Human relations and the Hawthorn studies
Durkheim’s social solidarity and anomie were a big influence on the works of Mayo. Difference was
that Durkheim’s interest were not with the ruling of managerial interests of capital society, Mayo’s
were.
Durkheim: social integration through moral communities based on occupations
Mayo: industrial workgroup and employing enterprise, with the industrial managers having
responsibility for ensuring that group affiliations and social sentiments were fostered in a creative
way
Elton Mayo -> human relations school of industrial sociology
- Was anxious to develop an effective and scientifically informed managerial elite
- If managements could ensure that employees social needs where met at work by giving
them the satisfaction of working together, by making them feel important in the organization
and by showing an interest in their personal problems, both social breakdowns and
industrial conflict could be headed off.
- ‘Managerial skills and good communication were the antidotes to the potential pathologies
of an urban industrial civilization’.
Hawthorne investigated in effects of workshop illumination: close interest shown in the workers by
investigators, the effective pattern of communication which developed and the emerging high social
cohesion within the group brought together the needs of the group for rewarding interaction and
co-operation with the output needs of the management. close interest, communication and
cohesion is everything that’s needed for interaction and co-operation with the output needs of the
management
It also showed that many of the problems of management-worker relationships could be put down to
the failure to recognise the emotions and the ‘sentiments’ of the employees
Pareto: key figure in Hawthorne studies
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