Hyper-Organization offers an institutional explanation for the expansion of formal organization in the contemporary era-in numbers, internal complexity, social domains, and national contexts. Much expansion is hard to justify in terms of technical production or political power, it lies in areas such as protecting the environment, promoting marginalized groups, or behaving with transparency. The authors argue that expansion is supported by widespread cultural rationalization characterized by scientism, rights and empowerment discourses, and an explosion of education. These cultural changes are transmitted through legal, accounting, and professionalization principles, driving the creation of new organizations and the elaboration of existing ones. The resulting organizations are constructed to be proper social actors, as much as functionally effective entities. They are painted as autonomous and integrated but depend heavily on external definitions to sustain this depiction. So expansion creates organizations that are, whatever their actual effectiveness, structurally arational. This book advances theories of social organization in three main ways. First, by giving an account of the expansive rise of 'organization' rooted in rapid worldwide cultural rationalization. Second, explaining the construction of contemporary organizations as purposive actors, rather than passive bureaucracies or loose associations. Third, showing how the expanded actorhood of the contemporary organization, and the associated interpenetration with the environment, dialectically generate structures far removed from instrumental rationality.

Hyper-Organization: Global Organizational Expansion

Politics & Social Sciences

Meyer, John W.

Bromley, Patricia

Sociology

Oxford University Press

The University and the Global Knowledge Society (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)

Review\n"Frank and Meyer provide a unique and thorough assessment of the university as an institution and how it has persisted through the centuries, largely in the same form and despite numerous external challenges. . . . This book makes a useful contribution to the institutional analysis of universities and will certainly find a prominent place on reading lists for students and scholars of organizational sociology, higher education, and globalization."---Rebecca Natow, Teachers College Record\nHow the university went global and became the heart of the information age\nThe university is experiencing an unprecedented level of success today, as more universities in more countries educate more students in more fields. At the same time, the university has become central to a knowledge society based on the belief that everyone can, through higher education, access universal truths and apply them in the name of progress. This book traces the university's rise over the past hundred years to become the cultural linchpin of contemporary society, revealing how the so-called ivory tower has become profoundly interlinked with almost every area of human endeavor.\nDavid John Frank and John Meyer describe how, as the university expanded, student and faculty bodies became larger, more diverse, and more empowered to turn knowledge into action. Their contributions to society underscored the public importance of scholarship, and as the cultural authority of universities grew they increased the scope of their research and teaching interests. As a result, the university has become the bedrock of today's information-based society, an institution that is now implicated in the solution to every conceivable problem.\nBut, as Frank and Meyer also show, the conditions that helped spur the university's recent ascendance are not immutable: eruptions of nationalism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism undercut the university's universalistic and rationalistic premises, and may threaten the centrality of the university itself.

Frank, David John

Princeton University Press

How the university went global and became the heart of the information age The university is experiencing an unprecedented level of success today, as more universities in more countries educate more students in more fields. At the same time, the university has become central to a knowledge society based on the belief that everyone can, through higher education, access universal truths and apply them in the name of progress. This book traces the university's rise over the past hundred years to become the cultural linchpin of contemporary society, revealing how the so-called ivory tower has become profoundly interlinked with almost every area of human endeavor. David John Frank and John Meyer describe how, as the university expanded, student and faculty bodies became larger, more diverse, and more empowered to turn knowledge into action. Their contributions to society underscored the public importance of scholarship, and as the cultural authority of universities grew they increased the scope of their research and teaching interests. As a result, the university has become the bedrock of today's information-based society, an institution that is now implicated in the solution to every conceivable problem. But, as Frank and Meyer also show, the conditions that helped spur the university's recent ascendance are not immutable: eruptions of nationalism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism undercut the university's universalistic and rationalistic premises, and may threaten the centrality of the university itself.

Meyer and Scott are among the leading proponents of the environmental view of organizational theory, which sees organizational structures as primarily determined by environment as opposed to technology. Their view and approach is demonstrated here in a collection of essays, that consider the place of organizations within a wider institutional structure, paying particular attention to educational systems and medical services.

Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality

Business & Money

Scott, W. Richard

Terrence E. Deal

Brian Rowan

Business Culture

Sage Publications, Inc.

The authors show how the cultural values underlying the ideology of Western society have determined the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. This Western culture also suggests the form of various social institutions, legitimizes and limits the development of social movements, and provides for the place of the individual in society.

Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society and the Individual

Thomas, George M.

Boli, John

Ramirez, Francisco O.

Social Sciences

The original edition of this important book has had a significant impact on organizational theorizing throughout the past decade. Meyer and Scott are both well known for their significant contributions to institutional theories of organizations and this Updated Edition blends original articles and compilations of other works to create the most complete explication of the authors' theoretical notions.

The original edition of this important book has had a significant impact on organizational theorizing throughout the past decade. Meyer and Scott are both well known for their significant contributions to institutional theories of organizations and this Updated Edition blends original articles and compilations of other works to create the most complete explication of the authors′ theoretical notions.

Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism

The institutional theory of organizations developed by Scott, Meyer and their colleagues over the past two decades has had an enormous impact on organizational theory and research. In this book, the editors review the major theoretical advances of the past decade and the empirical testing they have done on these theories. Their work has highlighted two key themes: the interrelationship between organizational complexity and the institutional environment; and the place of the individual within the organization.

Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Springer Series in Synergetics; 63)

Management & Leadership

Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization

This book presents empirical studies of the rise, expansion, and influence of scientific discourse and organization throughout the world, over the past century. Using quantitative cross-national data, it shows the impact of this scientized world polity on national societies. It examines how this world scientific system and national reflections of it have influenced a wide variety of institutional spheres―the economy, political systems, human rights, environmentalism, and organizational reforms. The authors argue that the triumph of science across social domains and around the world is due to its institutionalized cultural authority rather than to its instrumental utility for societies or for their dominant elites. Thus, following the Stanford approach to institutional theory in sociology, the book emphasizes the symbolic or religious role science plays in the modern world.

Drori, Gili S.

Schofer, Evan

Stanford University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Meyer, John W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Meyer, John W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Meyer, John W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Hyper-Organization: Global Organizational Expansion

Hyper-Organization: Global Organizational Expansion

The University and the Global Knowledge Society (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)

The University and the Global Knowledge Society (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)

Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality

Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society and the Individual

Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality

Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality

Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Springer Series in Synergetics; 63)

Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization