ABSTRACT
Alvin W. Gouldner was born in Harlem on July 29, 1920; a son of Jewish immigrants newly arrived to the US In essence, industrial sociology was built on the discoveries, running from Max Weber through the Hawthorne experiments of the 20s and into new management practices and theory of the 30s, of the broader social forces which had been unleashed with the rise of industrial civilization. By the time Gouldner had arrived at Columbia in 1943, then, industrial sociology was already becoming well-established as a legitimate field of specialty within sociology. In the natural-system model the organization is regarded as a natural whole, or system. Although the goals of the organization are important, they are not paramount in determining the ordering and patterning of relations in the organization. Gouldner's entire career in industrial sociology amounted to a conversation with Weber about the limitations of his formulation of bureaucracy.
