Tom Burns (sociologist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tom Burns (born January 16, 1913 in London , † June 20, 2001 in Edinburgh ) was a British industrial and organizational sociologist.

life and work

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Bristol University , he taught in private schools from 1935-39. During the war, he served in the Friends' Ambulance Unit from 1939 to 1945 . 1941–43 he was a German prisoner of war in Crete. 1945-49 he worked as a research assistant in the West Midland Group on Post-War Reconstruction and Planning . In 1949 he became a lecturer ( lecturer ) at Edinburgh University , where he 1965 Sociology , which he founded as a separate subject as its first professor and director until retirement represented the 1,981th

His study The Management of Innovation , carried out in cooperation with the psychologist George M. Stalker , was a milestone in the development of organizational theory (see situational approach ). The study included 20 companies in the electronics industry and differentiated them according to "mechanical" and "organic" management systems. The former operated under stable technology and market conditions, the latter under conditions of rapidly changing technologies in uncertain markets. Since the researchers considered these conditions to be the ones that would prevail in the future, they also expected a spread of organic systems which, due to their non-hierarchical and network-like control structure, are better able to adapt to unstable conditions.

In old age he wrote a biography of the American sociologist Erving Goffmann .

Burns was among the first sociologists to join the British Academy .

His marriage (since 1944) to Mary Clark resulted in a son and four daughters.

Fonts

  • Micropolitics: Mechanisms of Institutional Change. In: Administrative Science Quarterly. 1961.
  • with George M. Stalker: The Management of Innovation. Tavistock, London 1961.
  • (Ed.): Industrial Man. Penguin, Harmonswords 1969.
  • The BBC: Public Institution and Private World. Macmillan, London 1977.
  • Erving Goffman. Routledge, London 1991.
  • Description, Explanation and Understanding: Selected Writings 1944-80. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1995.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gianfranco Poggi (2003) Tom Burns 1913-2001 , obituary for Tom Burns; Retrieved April 11, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Burns, Tom
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British industrial and organizational sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 2001
Place of death Edinburgh