ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the basic human relations of work organizations. The three types of basic human relations in organizations are: power relations, authority relations, and status relations. Power relations serve to tie organization members to each other by organizing systems of functional interdependence. One way of measuring the amount of power is to determine the essentiality of a given function or set of functions for the organization. Another facet of the amount of power in power relations is exclusiveness of responsibility for performing a given function. The impact of numbers upon the amount of power rests upon the possibility of rapid substitution of a replacement for a missing, or absent, member of a work organization. Status relations in a work organization are interactions between two or more members determined by their respective ranking on a value scale. In work organizations the most obvious marks of status are titles attached to occupations.
