ABSTRACT
One of the most stimulating recent developments in sociology has been the growing attention given to organizations. Power, authority, the division of labour, rules of behaviour, social control, all difficult to isolate for study in society, present themselves universally in organizations and with much greater clarity and definition. The problems of organization recur in such varied social units as firms, civil services, armies, hospitals, universities, and trade unions, and therefore involve issues which transcend the concerns of the experts on any one of these organizations. They involve an awareness of the distinctive contribution sociologists may make to the understanding of social life. The ‘sociological standpoint’ insists that human beings must be studied in respect of how they actually act rather than how they might ideally act. This standpoint when applied to problems of organization produces a literature which is distinctive to sociology and which in my view stands at the traditional core of that discipline.
