This structure is the framework and the more or less permanent configuration that the group acquires when building and developing its functions and has been defined as the total of regularities established in a system that remains unchanged; These patterned regularities constitute those characteristics that indicate within the group what should be done, when, who has to do it and how, and are relatively independent of the individuals that make up the group, as well as stable.
It is generally admitted that this group structure comprises elements such as status, roles, leadership, norms and the communication and power structure, with the core being the role and status systems, so that the group structure will come determined above all by the roles and positions of its members.
The structure of a group is its own model or pattern of interpersonal relationships and has the following distinctive profiles:
- However basic they may be, all groups have a structure. Once consolidated, it does not change easily. Its main function is to increase the fluidity of the interaction and, therefore, the communication and effectiveness of the groups.
The statuses and the roles. Concepts.
If we consider the position of a given member in a group as his place in the system, this position has an associated role (role) consisting of synthesis in the expected behavior of the person who occupies it, the status being the assessment that the other members position is awarded.
Thus, the position of each member in the group leads to an assessment or prestige that we call status, the role being the set of behaviors associated with a position within a group and both concepts facilitate the interaction of members and support the group. In effect: playing a role implies behaving and behaving according to certain socially established guidelines, and this obviously allows us to establish relationships with others in a relatively predictable and coherent way; Those guidelines and that role have a value, a social image attributable to each person that makes up the status, and both give us a place in life.
Now when we refer to a person, we usually refer to him from his main role and based on his general status and he self-evaluates and perceives himself based on this key status and role.
The status and its characteristics
Status is the value of a person as it is estimated by a group or class of people or otherwise it is the prestige, the category, the admiration with which we are seen or evaluated by others, and as such, not it depends on what you are or think you are or what you do, but on what others think you are; In short, we can say that individual status always depends on how others perceive and evaluate it.
Fundamental areas of status
- a) The distribution of tasks among the members will entail a different assessment of the subjects who perform them; but in addition to them, the competence in their performance and the degree of commitment of the subject with itb) with respect to power are also valued in the task, the status is granted to a member by virtue of her influence in the decision-making
Criteria for assigning status
- Wealth is usually considered a universal criterion of status, but the origin of wealth must also be taken into account, since badly acquired or recently acquired money does not provide so much status. Functional utility refers to the fact that a person is usually valued for what does in society by virtue of what is thought worth doing. The degree of instruction is in relation to the impact and power of knowledge and experience and is a clear symbol of status. The type of religion and degree in which it is professed is a determinant of status especially in societies where only one religion is well regarded or tolerated. Biological characteristics are criteria of but at the time of attributing status in many societies and groups so that, most of the time, unfortunately, age, sex and race,they weigh specifically as indicators of prestige.
Manifestations and consequences of assigning status
Therefore, there are general behavioral guidelines by virtue of status but always marinated and seasoned with personal style; Thus we see how people with more status have more opportunities to exert influence and, in the end, they are really more influential than those with less status; status also influences interpersonal perception so that those with more status tend to be better evaluated but status also influences self-evaluation and self-esteem so that people with more status tend to have more self-esteem
The roles and their characteristics
A role is a set of rights, obligations and standards of conduct approved for individuals who are in a position. As brown indicates to us the differentiation and assignment of roles is something fundamental in the groups since it implies a division of tasks between the members, which facilitates the achievement of goals and objectives; it contributes to ordering the group's own existence by being linked to the system of norms; and ultimately, they are part of the self-definition of the individuals in the group. The different roles are acquired by social learning, in this sense they are learned expectations that also tend to be reciprocal given that as we become familiar with our roles, we also do so with those of others.
THE ORGANIZATION: NATURE, THEORY AND CULTURE
Nature of organizations
In the origin and evolution of organizations there are a multitude of factors that according to some authors and the evolution of organizations there are a multitude of factors that according to some authors can be summarized in four: technical, legal, structural and individual. All organizations rely on technical aspects and also give value, generally, to the advancement of technology, while they depend on legal regulations and are defined by the social structure that in turn can facilitate the development of these organizations. Likewise, aspects of the individual, such as rationality and the inclination to achieve goals through the use of the available means, will contribute to the development of organizations.
The emergence of organizations in the world of work
In the development of organizations within the framework of work, we can distinguish, according to Schneider, three main phases:
- Guild system: The guilds were associations of merchants and artisans who sought to help, protect and relate to each other. They provided fraternal cooperation but also exercised economic control and frequently had great political influence. It was based on a system of relationships in which apprentices, officers and teachers had different roles and obligations. The work carried out was not specialized and no machinery was used in production. Domestic system: one of the main characteristics of this system was that, unlike the union, the physical workplace is transferred from the workshop to the craftsman to the home. In this type of system, the artisan produces the product and delivers it to the merchant who will sell it on the market.In this way, the artisan is an employee of the merchant who provides raw materials and pays the artisan for his work. This conferred greater and progressive economic power on the merchants. Some problems such as the impossibility of introducing machinery, the lack of order and the laboriousness of the production process, showed the lack of effectiveness in this type of system. Factory system: it consisted mainly of the workers - now workers - being brought together in the same physical place for the production of the good - the factory - they are provided with training and tools and they are paid with a salary. Control and survival over employees increases, while expenses for employers decrease significantly. Likewise, mechanization and the introduction of new technologies for production increases.The main interest was to increase productivity and reduce costs. On the other hand, labor relations between employers and workers alternate: the worker offers his services and the owner remunerates said services by means of a salary, without worrying about incentivizing the company's human resources.
Already in our century, with the development of modern industrial cities, a series of characteristics appear at an economic, socio-political and labor level. There is a greater level of specialization in work, a spectacular increase in industries - and especially in recent times in the service sector - decentralization of work and the consumer society has become general. Unions have emerged as the workforce, large metropolitan cities, social services, and compulsory education. Finally, the mass media and the new technologies incorporated into the production process have gained unlimited power.
In addition to the benefits that contemporary society represents from having such a wide range of organizations, to the point that it is precisely these organizations that act as stabilizers of society, organizations have also found all the negatives of being human. Drugs, murders, violent deaths, wars, manipulation, progressive destruction of the environment and ecological disasters and the depersonalization of the individual have also been the product of those same organizations. It must be said, however, that all these problems have in turn resulted in the emergence of many other organizations that were seeking to correct them.
Thus, organizations such as health instructions, educational institutions, state administration, unions, and voluntary associations appeared among many others.
Organization concept
The first approach to the concept of organization to which we are not going to refer is that of Weber, who already in 1922 defined the corporate group as a social relationship that is either closed or limits the admission of outsiders by imposing rules and rules.
Etzioni in 1964 conceives of the organization as a social unit that seeks to achieve an end. According to Etzioni, organizations are characterized by the division of labor, by communication systems and by power competencies.
Scout in 1964 has a perspective on organization conceiving it as a systematic collective created to achieve relatively specific goals on an ongoing basis. The characteristics of the organizations for this author exceed their specific objectives. These characteristics are: the existence of limits that are built in the organization with respect to its external environment, a hierarchical authority, a communication system and a remuneration system.
Barnard proposes a definition in which the organization is conceptualized as a system of activities or forces of two or more consciously coordinated people.
For Mayntz (1972), every organization has three common notes. In the first place they constitute social formations as a precise number of members and in which there will be an internal differentiation of functions. Second, they are directed toward a specific purpose. And thirdly, they have a rational configuration in order to achieve these specific goals.
Porter, Lawler and Hackman adopt a synthetic approach and propose that organizations are made up of individuals and groups, directed towards rationally coordinated objectives and with permanence in time, in which production elements are used, decisions are made and risks are assumed with in order to produce goods and / or services and obtain benefits.
Weinert (1985) tries to gather all the points of view in a single definition: an organization is a collective set with relatively fixed and identifiable limits, with a normative arrangement, with a hierarchical authority system, with a communication system and with a system of coordinated members; This collective set is formed by a relatively continuous base within an environment that surrounds it and is dedicated to actions and activities that normally tend towards a final goal or objective, or a series of final goals or objectives.
With regard to composition, all the definitions coincide in that they are social entities in which individuals take part and in which they act. In what refers to the methods, the common thing is in the division of functions and the methods of coordinating and directing the actions. Regarding orientation, organizations will have an instrumental nature since they are social entities that serve to do, achieve or achieve something. Finally, one of the common aspects of the organizations would be their continuity in what refers to their temporary permanence.
Rodríguez Fernández (1998) summarizes the common characteristics of current organizations in four. Any organization would be: a) an artificial social and technical system in permanent process of change, b) an ecosystem that develops its activity in continuous interaction with the environment, c) a source of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for the members that constitute it and finally d) the most vigorous and most present image of our society.
On the other hand, we must not forget other aspects that affect the organization such as the environment, since in current organizations one of its main characteristics is its great interdependence with respect to the external environment; the mission of the organization, that is, what type of company it is, what its products are like and what type of management it follows; the purpose, which will be to obtain both economic and social benefits, enabling their survival; the organization's strategy, that is, which path must be followed to achieve the objectives proposed by the organization, that is, which path must be followed to achieve the objectives proposed by the organization, always taking into account the environment - competitors, suppliers and consumers - and the relationship with our employees - organize and involve -;and to conclude, management and direction, since the essential function of the organization is to satisfy its needs and stimulate employees to work as a team, train and get involved with the project.
Types of organization
Burns and Stalker (1961) differentiate between organic and mechanical organizations, attending to variables such as the nature of the environment and the nature of work for inclusion in one or the other. These authors suggest that the most flexible organizations will present better levels of adaptation to changing and unstable environments. Both the mechanical model and the organic model are presented as opposite poles of the same continuum.
Blau and Scout classify organizations according to who benefits from their existence, categorizing four types. Mutual benefit associations - benefit members of the organization -, commercial entities - benefit owners and managers - service organizations - benefit customers - and common welfare organizations - benefit the general public.
Mintzberg (1979) points out that the effectiveness of organizations depends on the operation of a set of relationships between the design of the structure, the technology, the size, the age of the organization and the conditions of the sector in which it operates.
This interrelation of elements will generate five types of organization that will be able to be located on a continuum: bureaucratic-machines, divisionalized, professional bureaucracies, those with a simple structure and adhocratic ones. The first would encompass organizations with simple tasks and stable and calm environments -bureaucratic-machines-, while the opposite pole of the continuum we would find organizations with extremely variable and changing tasks and environments - adhocracy-.
Formal organizations are distinguished by essential variables such as objectives, work process, magnitude and complexity, informal organizations integrate people, reduce monotony and work fatigue, facilitate communication and improve the prestige and personality of the subjects.
The rational organization seeks maximum effectiveness by achieving a set of specific objectives. Individuals do not participate in the elaboration of goals, implying, therefore, a poor vision of the human being in the organization. Control systems are iron and structures will tend to be centralized and hierarchical. Natural organization is characterized by focusing its attention on the characteristics of the participants, on their relationships and on their behavioral structure rather than on the characteristics of order or control.
The organization as a closed system is characterized as those organizations that have developed to achieve a certain objective through the most rational and profitable procedure. The organization as a closed system in mechanics, stable and safe.
One criticism that can be made of the organization as a closed system is the strong role played by factors external to the organization as an open system. In fact, internal factors alone explain very little about the organization's internal processes. Therefore, the organization as an open system is presented as a unit that is not autonomous, but maintains itself in constant and reciprocal interaction with other units that surround it. It is necessary to emphasize the interdependence of all parts of the system and its interdependence with the environment, regardless of the complexity and variability of the nature of its structure and the variability of the environment with which it is related.
In this type of organization the limits of it are not perfectly delimited as it happens in the organization as a closed system, but it does not mean that they disappear. This implies that the subjects that belong to this type of organization carry out a process of partial inclusion within it, that is, part of their activities are carried out within their limits and part of their activities outside.
Main theoretical models
We will describe the main theoretical models that unite the classical theories, as well as, and succinctly, we will review other theories of a more novel nature or the fruit of the union of some of them.
Scientific direction
From this model, maximum efficiency is advocated by organizations seeking the highest levels of profitability. To achieve this, there is a need to direct behavior to specific goals as well as to link remuneration to the objectives achieved. At the beginning of the century, this model is presented as a business panacea since it offers mechanisms to increase productivity, as well as to decrease conflict and achieve social harmony. Today and despite the criticism received, it remains the basic principle of studies of times and movements so important in large production companies - <
Three aspects are important to take into account in this model: the poor vision of the human being, the importance of the economic factor as the main motivating element, and the study and knowledge of the tasks to be carried out.
For this model man lacks initiative, is lazy and irrational, always looking for self-interest and maximum personal benefit, seeking the sole purpose of financial reward. The importance of the study of the subject lies in knowing what its limits are, in order to know what the real production standards can be from this model, leaving aside all knowledge of its mental and intellectual activity. This model of <
The bureaucratic tradition
The bureaucratic model0 is presented as a viable solution to the complex problems that are established in modern organizations based on the organization structure, command structure, and impersonal relationships of its members.
The activities are grouped by tasks, and these in positions that are carried by people; the positions are organized hierarchically, supervised in turn by a high position. The department head is responsible to her boss, and in turn is responsible to her subordinates. It has power over them, this authority being described accurately and carefully; the roles guarantee uniformity and harmony, the behavior of individuals is formal and impersonal; Working in the system means having technical and professional qualifications, presenting loyalty as a good value for personal development.
This model has the disadvantages of depersonalization, not taking into account the environment and individual differences. Furthermore, such a level of programming can make behaviors go against the organization. Organizations are made up of social groups and they involve going against the organization. The informal organization that runs parallel to the formal one cannot adapt to the present model.
Human relations. Hawthone's studies showed that organizations are systems so that when one element is changed everything changes; that esteem plays an important role in motivation; informal organization influences the work performance of the subject; that case communication is better than specialization to achieve goals; that the organization distributes outlets among its members; that the behavior of the subject is not only based on economic rewards and that the satisfaction of the members leads to greater productivity.
Rodríguez Fernández followed by Perrow distinguishes on the one hand, between human relationships - led by research typology based on morality, leadership and productivity where performance improvements due to leadership, job enrichment, and psychological orientation to the subject are present and to small groups, etc.-, and human resources on the other hand- where it is assumed that people want to participate to cover their needs for autonomy and identification with the organization-, in this way the contributions will be more effective. Criticisms of this model include the possible existence of unobservable rewards and even the lack of scientific rigor.
Scientific administration
From this rational and closed perspective, emphasis is placed on the grouping of tasks into jobs and these in turn into departments that make up the total organization. It is not presented as a theory in its most classical sense, but as the accumulation of activities and positions that focuses the attention of the director of the organization. Therefore, a pragmatic development of bureaucratic and managerial ideas that lead to an efficient management of the organization is proposed.
The principles of scientific administration, which in turn draw from Weber's principles, are: principle of hierarchical scale, unity of command (each man receives orders from a man), principle of exception (routine must be reduced to procedures), span of control (limited number of subordinates for its direction -max. 10-) and specialization and departmentalization.
It should be noted that from this perspective they consider what should be the functions of the director, whose initials of the functions in English
-POSDORB- originated a term already known in the organizational world. These functions are: planning, general organization, staff organization, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting.
Both this theory and the bureaucratic orientation make up the functionalist-structuralist approach, where it is already stated that organizations have a role or function with respect to their environment and where the idea is maintained that good control helps to restrain cost. Likewise, relations with the environment and the environment are attended to and it is assumed that the parties are subordinate to the entire system. A contribution to take into account in this theory is the need for the organization to ensure that individuals and groups share the same value system, since this will keep the social order within the organization cohesive.
The technological theory
Its conception starts from the great role that technical media have in organizations.
Economic theory
Conception that understands the organization as an active part of the economic system encompassing organizations of a commercial industrial type.
The equilibrium model.
It highlights the needs for maintaining balance both internally and externally, which considers the harmony between the organization's objectives and personal needs.
The ecological model.
Of a natural open nature, here the environment will adopt the role of natural selector of the organizations. The environment is the fundamental element to take into account in the organization.
The individual in the organization
In this sense, Whyte alerts man - organization of the 20th century of the danger of incurring excessive conformity with the approaches of the organizations he serves and on which he depends, and encourages him to balance his need for belonging with the development of their own individuality and originality.
The interrelation of both parts is not always a gratifying and satisfactory dependency, sometimes, given the different interests and expectations at stake, this relationship becomes a pair that is difficult to harmonize.
Organizational behavior
Mitchell defines it as << the discipline that deals with the study of the behavior of individuals and groups in the organizational context.
This systematic study proposes a triple level of analysis or approach:
- individual level: from it the psychological and behavioral characteristics of the individuals who interact with the environmental variables of the organization are emphasized. group level: the individual does not work in isolation, as the school of human relations already emphasized: the behavior of the individual in organization always occurs in a Therefore, the social dimension of individual behavior stands out. Organizational level: the organizational framework that involves the behavior of the individual and of the groups determines the organizational behavior, based on its structure, functioning and culture.
Conduct of the individual in the organization
The person is an integrated whole. When you join an organization, you bring the set of skills, abilities, dreams and goals you have, along with other aspects that may not only not interest the organization, but also try to minimize since they do not collaborate with the organizational objectives.
However, organizational behavior will be inescapably determined by these individual psychological variables, which sometimes come to raise issues not foreseen by the organization's normative and ideal models.
This should pay attention to the individual and informal phenomena that largely determine it.
Studies on this topic conclude that the existing organization seeps into each individual as a unique and personal perceived organization. Each subject sets in motion cognitive, attentional, motivational, and general perception mechanisms that largely determine the nature and frequency of their behavior in the organization.
Along with this subjective perception factor, the important motivational dimension must be highlighted. People act in the organization based on their expectations and the strength of conviction in achieving the goals they have and want to achieve.
People as well as a whole are unique and therefore have parameters that differentiate them from the others.
Such a principle is frequently applied in the area of human resource selection, for example. In turn, the person not only contributes knowledge, skills and attitudes, but given the demand and organizational competitiveness, in function of the position she occupies and the demands of the role played, she must undergo constant training processes.
Organizational culture
We can define the culture of an organization as the social and normative glue that allows its members to have an identity and also to be able to communicate and cooperate around a common project.
The conceptual areas covered by culture in organizations are: value systems and management ethics, ideology and behavior. Values function as moral and normative beacons that guide the behavior of group members in certain situations. They indicate what is right or correct for the organization and what is not.
Each department and group unit share ways of acting that give rise to the existence of subcultures and even countercultures within the organization's parent culture.
Through habitual models of interaction, both formal and informal, historically consolidated in the day-to-day of the organization, individuals manage to immerse themselves in the culture of the organization, thus reducing anxiety in the situations that they must face following the guidelines set by the organization.
For this reason, the concept of organizational culture must be coherent and consistent with culture at the national level so that its operation is optimal. Culture is not tangible but it manifests itself in multiple ways, on the one hand, in the form of myths, rites, stories and legends that extol the organization and its heroes beliefs - as we have already commented - and physical manifestations as Schein suggests, the most important layer. external or visible of the culture: architecture, logos, image, uniform, etc.
Finally, the organizational culture is considered strong or weak based on the power of influence it exercises in the behavior of its members, that is, to the extent that it facilitates the identification of the person with the organization's perception and updating schemes.
THE LEVEL OF GROUP RELATIONSHIP: THE STATUS AND THE ROLES
Contributed by: RAMON TRUJILLO RUIZ - [email protected]
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