Management sociology
The Management Sociology is a relatively new sub-discipline of sociology who closely follow corporate and organizational theory premises is coupled. In this respect, it differs significantly from classical management theory , as it analyzes not only research into management as a specific group of actors, but above all the organization as a social system and as the structural background of action . On the other hand, because of this narrowing, its object cannot be extended to a general function that can be observed in all areas of society .
It asks about the contribution that managers make to the structuring of organizations - as executives - and what consequences their social positioning as an economic elite will have under the conditions of changing organizational constellations and social structures.
It aims to use historical and concrete analyzes to make subtle social structures visible that open up people in management positions to particular opportunities for power and influence and excellent careers . Just as, on the other hand, it shows consequences for those for whom these career paths remain closed.
Historical development of management and early management sociology
In the 19th century, the positions that the "managers" occupy today were occupied by so-called industrial officials or private officials . The description as a "large industrial official" was related to bureaucratic organizations and referred to a subordinate administrative office - a service function for the entrepreneur , as it were .
On the other hand, in the 20th century the connotation of the manager with - of whatever kind - risky decision-making authority prevailed. At the same time, more and more positions were declared as management tasks - from company management to the simplest service activities (e.g. the caretaker becomes the "facility manager" ). The change in linguistic usage indicates an important social change . "Management" serves today as a socially prestigious , symbolic proof of decision-making authority. The manager inherited the entrepreneur, and not only in this respect. He also took his position in the company and finally moved up in the industrial societies in corresponding elite positions , which were connected with the disposition of socially relevant resources.
The advancement of managers into social elite positions and the question of the conditions for the reproduction of these positions appears as a historical impetus for a sociological thematization of management. While Karl Marx analyzed the importance of managers in production, but reduced their social relevance to the ownership of certain class relationships and interests - and therefore dealt more with scripts (economic laws of movement in bourgeois society) than with the actors themselves Max Weber , Werner Sombart and Joseph A. Schumpeter arguments for how “classic modernization” affected managers and entrepreneurs. The attempt to combine “purely economic” means and “purely economic” purposes by means of abstract rules, division of labor and administrators authorized to issue instructions was described as classic modernization . This was the semantic origin of modern, rational organization.
From the point of view of the classics, the hallmarks of this phenomenon, in addition to a high degree of scientification and machinisation, were above all the dominance of bureaucracy and formal rationality . The modern organization thus appeared on the one hand as a prototypical expression of the social direction of rationalization and on the other hand as a threat to the validity of value-rational action and the action of “large individuals”. The formally rational set of rules leaves little room for the heroic claims of organizational leaders. If managers wanted to gain a profile beyond a mere administrative role, they (like the entrepreneur before) were opposed to the bureaucratic organization with its binding rules.
From today's perspective, however, the classics overestimated the degree of possible rationality of scientific organization. The fact that the managers were actually able to set limits to their own interchangeability (legitimized by the release of formal reason) and that large industrial officials became "top management" is justified from a sociological perspective in the fact that classic modernization with its formal set of rules does not created a perfectly functioning organization and, as a result, primarily due to the structural indeterminacies in the process of organizing:
“These indeterminacies formed (...) the backdrop for the heroic staging of 'post-heroic management'. If one analyzes the autobiographies of successful managers in the USA, the (self) homage to leadership, autocracy and intuition catch the eye. These self-believed stereotypical self-presentations met (and still do) a response because the 'machine model' of the organization on which the 'classical modernization' was based had its limits in the inevitable sociality of the organization. "
The problem of status reproduction and the (management) doctrine of the corporate actor
The separation of management tasks (manager) and property ( shareholders ) gave the new social class an independent socio-structural role in the newly created structures of modern organization:
The management was able to make use of the myth of the entrepreneurs stepping into the background in the organizational space . The distorted image of classical modernization - in which the manager was understood as the head of a corporate actor who was able to determine the movements of the actor down to the last link by means of targeted instructions - gave management the opportunity to hide its organizational interchangeability with heroic self-portrayals. The management was challenged again and again and was ultimately successful in combining intuition and willingness to take risks with the idea of superior, scientifically trained professionalism. High salaries and commissions, the collection of educational and position titles as well as assets and reputation secured the established myth internally and externally.
Traditional management theory seemed complementary to the problems faced by managers in practice; as a doctrine of how the “head” can best and most successfully use its “limbs”. Three regulative ideas in particular were associated with this conception, from which modern organizational and management sociologies have largely moved away:
- The idea of a targeted change in the organization;
- the idea of different, but within the organization integrable and controllable rationalities of action and;
- the idea of an easily organized connection between individually rational and collectively reasonable decisions in organizations.
A more adequate description must, above all, take into account the fact that new impulses for rationalization (in the sense of classic modernization) meet organizations that have already been modernized and thus meet themselves . The associated problems such as uncertainty, misunderstandings or blind spots are exacerbated by changes in the socio-structural basis (“de-structuring” due to the arrival of the new middle classes ) and the embedding in global chains of interaction that repeatedly question modern traditions. But this not only shifts the problems that management has to deal with; its status in the organization also requires a new foundation.
The management of the organization
Instead of management, organization is increasingly moving into the center of management-sociological analyzes. Only on the basis of an elaborate organizational theory can a phenomenon such as modern management be determined and differentiated from the background of classic modernization myths.
For its part, the management is confronted with changed social stakeholder groups . Within the organization, new burdens of justification arise for classic organizational forms due to the increasing importance of professionalized, younger professional groups with changed values. On the one hand management problems become visible here, on the other hand - at the beginning of the 21st century - also the consequences of a generational change in management itself that is being implemented. And finally, the demands of the social environment, towards the practices of the organization - such as those in the discussion about morality or immorality of managers (“rivets in pinstripes”), about appropriate remuneration (e.g. in the debate about bonus systems ) or be articulated about corporate social responsibility .
Management problems as problems of domination and authority
The sociological classics - Weber, Sombart and Schumpeter - gave the sociological thematization of management an organizational and domination-theoretical profile. In modern management sociology, this second contouring is controversial. Above all, Niklas Luhmann, in his late work on organizational sociology, affirmed the thesis that rule is no longer a useful term for analyzing organization and management. This can be seen from the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify the ruler in the organization. As an alternative, Luhmann suggests instead of chasing after fleeting rule, switching to uncertainty as the central term and describing the process of " uncertainty absorption ".
In management sociology, however, the thesis has persisted that questions of the sociology of domination can sometimes be a fruitful reference point for analysis. Dominance was reserved as a term for social phenomena for which the voluntary recognition and the insight into the validity of an order (secured with reasons) - the superiority, subordination and authority of management - is constitutive. Not the assignment of avoidance alternatives , but the necessity of assigning authority and the recognition of a legitimacy claim by the subordinates is decisive here. As a consequence, this means that there cannot only be leadership from above , but also leadership from below . And that the problem of leadership must be tailored to one of the interaction between two strategic actors in the context of a complex organization.
Authority is assigned voluntarily by the subordinates. It can be understood as the attribution of instruction and counseling competence and differs from the phenomenon of domination in that it is always addressed to certain people . The process of assigning authority is of particular interest here, as it creates a precarious relationship in the interaction between managers and employees. The assignment is only temporary and can be withdrawn at any time. In contrast to the exercise of power, subordinates become the influential audience of management in the case of disposition through assignment or withdrawal of authority.
The use of additional design options as well as the recognition inherent in them generate an interest on the part of those in authority (here: the manager) in stabilizing the assignment (or the form of social interaction). Since the subordinates can also benefit from this if the social relationship is not interspersed with threats (avoidance alternatives), especially in modern organizations that are characterized by high interdependence, flexible and stable mutual relationships can arise until revoked, in which both sides continuously make concessions do. This marks the efficiency and effectiveness of established relationships of authority.
Generational change in management
Managers are historically viewed as a new social class and, following Max Weber, as one of the “ supporting layers ” of society. As a result, structural challenges, not least the global constellations of finance-driven capitalism, must be translated into economic rationalities. In this translation process, economic elites and their corporate policies gain considerable leeway and some influence on organizational development.
The "constant reinstatement of new cultural carriers" ( Karl Mannheim ), for example through the departure of an older generation from the organization, can result in a highly differentiated change in expectations. It can therefore be seen as one of the main tasks of management sociology to trace and explain the continuities and discontinuities in the generation change.
The change in production concepts was z. B. in the classical management theory primarily associated with a strategy but not with a possible generation change in management. In the discussion of the “ New Economy ”, it was generally underexposed that this catchphrase - beyond the productive use of the new Internet medium - was also a self-describing formula for a new generation of entrepreneurs and executives with an obvious need for cultural delimitation.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Pohlmann 2008
- ^ Niklas Luhmann: Organization and decision . West German Publishing House, Wiesbaden 2000
- ↑ See also Baecker 1994: 32; see. also Pohlmann 2002: 236ff
literature
- Dirk Baecker : Post-heroic management . A vademecum. Merve, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-88396-117-5 .
- Eugen Buß : Management Sociology - Basics, Practical Concepts, Case Studies . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58381-6 .
- Eugen Buß : The top German managers - how they became what they are . Origin, values, rules of success. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58256-7 .
- Michael Hartmann : Top Manager - Recruiting an Elite . Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-593-35513-2 .
- Markus Pohlmann : Management and morals . In: Tobias Blank, Tanja Münch, Sita Schanne and Christiane Staffhorst (eds.): Integrated sociology - perspectives between economy and sociology, practice and science. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Hansjörg Weitbrecht . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich and Mering 2008, ISBN 978-3-86618-255-4 .
- Markus Pohlmann: Management and leadership. A management sociological perspective . In: Professional Association of German Sociologists eV (Ed.): Social sciences and professional practice . Vol. 30, No. 1 , 2007, p. 5-20 .
- Markus Pohlmann: Management, Organization and Social Structure - On new issues and contours of management sociology . In: Rudi Schmidt, Hans-Joachim Gergs, Markus Pohlmann (eds.): Management sociology. Perspectives, theories, research desiderata . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich and Mering 2002, ISBN 978-3-87988-658-6 .
- Michael Reed: The sociology of management . Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0-7450-0570-6 .
- Rudi Schmidt, Hans-Joachim Gergs, Markus Pohlmann (eds.): Management sociology. Perspectives, theories, research desiderata . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich and Mering 2002, ISBN 978-3-87988-658-6 .