ABSTRACT
Organisations are a central part of modern industrial society and of the urban context and form the backcloth of contemporary human behaviour and choice. We are profoundly shaped as individuals by organisations, by the constraints they impose, the processes they develop, the interests they articulate, the goals they realise. In an individual sense organisations are part of everyday life; we are educated in one kind-the school, work in another -the firm or enterprise, and may have our leisure catered for by a variety of other types of organisation. It is clear that organisations impinge on almost every aspect of individual experience; they form a mesh and social fabric which we all share. Such sharing, however, is complex and diverse. Situations, relationships and interactions fuse and flow, penetrating a variety of groups and contexts. The objective in this chapter is to explore such complexity and diversity, particularly the ways in which sociology has conceptualised the patterning of that social reality we call organisations.
