Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
OF ORGANIZATIONS
Social Responsibilities of
Organisations
Objectives
After going through this unit you should be able to:
Structure
14.1 The Beginning
14.2 Defining the Social Existence of the Organisations
14.3 Organisational Role Extended Towards the Society
14.4 Summary
14.5 Further Readings/References
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Organisational Dynamics
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(1949) were among the first to insists that the central political issue for all modern
society were no longer what type of economic structure prevailed - whether
capitalists, socialist or communist - but the increasing dominance of the public
bureaucracy over the ostensible political leaders.
Social Responsibilities of
Organisations
Still other critics have called attention to how organizational structure affects the
personality and psyche of its participants. Alienation, over conformity and stunting of
normal personality development are among the consequences attributed, not to such
special cases as prisons and concentration camps, but to every day common types of
organizations. Here one notes that these aforementioned negative views towards
organizations provide further testimony to their importance as well as their social
responsibility in the modern world.
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Organisational Dynamics
putting the man on the moon. But to focus on what organizations do may conceal
from us the more basic and far reaching effects that occur because organizations are
mechanism - the media by which those goals are pursued. For example, when we
visit any hospital or clinic, we seek 'health' but what we get is 'medical care'. Clients
are encouraged to view these outputs as synonyms although their may be no relation
between. them. In some cases relations can even be negative: More care may result in
poorer health as immunity. Another example may be that products manufactured by
organization reflect the manufacturing process. They often reflects the need to
subdivide the work and to simplify task, and the manufacturing pressures towards
standardization of parts and personnel. Customization in genuine sense becomes
prohibitively expensive. Metal. replaces wood and plastic replaces metal in many
products to satisfy organizational, not consumer, needs.
To suggest that our organizational tools shape the products and services they produce
would appears to be a' relatively sweeping and unsettling generalization on which
might be content to rest our case. We fail to perceive the importance organizations
for our lives if view them merely as tool for achieving goals. Organizations must be
viewed as actors in their own right, as corporate persons. They take actions utilize
resources, enter into contracts. Coleman (1974) describes the rights of organizations
as they have developed gradually since the Middle Ages to the point where now it is
accurate to speak of two kinds of persons - 'natural' persons (like you and me) and
corporate or 'juristic' persons (like the Red Cross and Maruti Udyog Limited). The
social structure of modern society can no longer be described accurately as consisting
only of relations among natural persons: our understanding must be stretched to
include as well those relations between natural and corporate persons. In brief, we
must come to the recognition that society has changed over the past few centuries in
the vary structural elements of which it is composed.
Further, organizations provide the setting for 'a wide variety of basic social processes,
such as socialization, communication, ranking, the formation of norms,. the exercise
of power and goal-setting and attainment. If these generic social processes operate in
organizations, then we can add as much to our knowledge of the principles that
govern their behaviour by studying organizations as by studying any other specific
type of social system. Organizations are characterized by somewhat distinctive
structural arrangements that affect the operation of the processes occuring within
them. For example, social control processes occurs in all social groups, but there are
some forms or mechanisms of control for instance a hierarchical authority structure that are best studied in organizations, since it is within these systems they appear in
their most highly developed form. Thus, the study of organizations can contribute to
the basic knowledge by increasing our understanding of how generic social processes
operate within distinctive social structures.
The Social Boundaries of Organization
The problems controlling organizations in setting and policing their boundaries are
complex and subtle. Given the essence of organizations as open systems, their
boundaries must necessarily be sieves and not shells, admitting the desirable flows
and excluding the inappropriate or deleterious elements. Determining what is
desirable or harmful can be a difficult decision, in past because the criteria can vary
from time to time and from location to location in the organization.
The Boundaries of Collectivities
The collectivity can be viewed as an identifiable "chunk" of the social order. The
criteria for determining the existence of a collectivity are (1) a delimited social
structure, that is, a bounded network of social relations and (2) a normative order
applicable to the participants linked by the network. All collectivities - including
informal groups, communities organizations and entire societies - possess, by
definition, boundaries that distinguish them from other systems.
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Many different indicators can help to identify the boundaries of collectively, some
focus attention on the behavioural structure and some on nominative. A widely used
behavioural
Social Responsibilities of
Organisations
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Organisational Dynamics
who is more educated than the earlier generations do not have the same attitudes
toward importance of handwork and craftsmanship and their reasons for holding a
job is quite different. There is a tremendous uncertainty about the working values of
today's workers. It is the responsibility of both the organization and its members to
think collectively and create an appropriate work culture not only to extend the
enhancement of profit and productivity but also to give a dignified work life to the
employees.
The responsibility that are coming through the external sources is reflected in the
composition of work force in the form of minorities and female employees. Of course
the political and economic uncertainity is also a significant factor but the
organizations (except the political one) can only contribute indirectly. It is now very
important to understand interactions in groups composed of people of different
cultural categories or states. Four groups can be identified on the basis of various
proportional representation of kinds of people. Uniform groups have only one kind of
person, one significant social type. The acquire salient statuses such as sex, race or
ethnicity. Skewed groups are those in which there is a large preponderance and one
type over another. Few of the skewed groups can be called as tokens because often
they are treated as representatives of their category as symbols rather than
individuals. Next tilted groups begin to move towards the less extreme and less
exaggerated effects. They begin to become individuals differentiated from each other
as well as a type differentiated from the majority. Finally the balanced group - which
is reflected by culture and interaction. In today's world the major concern is
emanating from the skewed group especially the women in organizations. The use of
term 'token' for minority members especially women is rather prevalent. The
proportional scarcity of women is not unique to them, the uniqueness lies with them
entering the all-male fields of occupation. The proportional rarity of tokens is
associated with three perceptual phenomena: visibility, polarization and assimilation.
Regarding visibility, the women as tokens capture a large share of the groups'
awareness. Polarization of difference and exaggeration of the same is another
common dynamic. In assimilation usually there is an use of stereotypes or families
generalizations is used to. define the persons social type. Visibility creates
performance pressure on the token. Polarization leads to group boundary heightening
and isolation of the token. And assimilation results in the tokens role entrapment, All
these dynamics create a glass ceiling effect and restrict the career movements of the
minority whether it is based on gender, race, or language. The social responsibility of
the modern organization is prevent such harmful effects and optimize the resource in
its diverse forms.
14.4 SUMMARY
Organisation being the principal vehicles for societal guidance, play very important
role in setting, pursuing and implementing the collective goals for the nation. The
objective of this unit has been to explain and examine the role of organisations in the
society, to prove its social existence in the society. Surroundings around any
organisation have vital linkages (tangible and intangible) with the organisation. It
becames the duty of the organisation to discharge its due for the society, which even
in the long run will be beneficial for the organisation.
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Social Responsibilities of
Organisations
Khandwalla, P.N. (Ed.) (1988). Social Development. .A New Role for the
Organisational Sciences, New Delhi, Sage
Mehta, P.(1983-84). "Parlicipatory Education of Rusal Workers". People's Self
Action for Socio-economics Development. NLI Bulletin-9.
Pareet, U. (1968). Motivational Paradigm for Development". Jous. of Soc. Issues 24 :
115-122.
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