Sociology of industry / by S.R. Parker ...[et. al]

THIS book is addressed mainly to students of sociology who are especially interested in its application to the world of work'. It is intended as an introduction, but assumes that the reader is not com pletely unfamiliar with the sociological approach to the study of society. The purpose of the book is twofold: to synthesize the grow ing body of relevant empirical material, and to show how sociological theory at different levels of analysis treats the three interrelated aspects of the subject matter. It is these three interrelated aspects which constitute the three sections of the book.

The first section is at the social system level of analysis, and examines the relationship between industry and other sub-systems of society. These sub-systems are historically unique in structure, and in function have specific relationships which limit generalization. Consequently, we examine both the particular and general aspects of sub-systems and their relationships. We discuss specifically education, the family and the polity as sub-systems each of which affects industry and is affected by it. At this level, industrial sociology forms part of a wider economic sociology, which is the application of the general frame of reference, variables and explanatory models of sociology to the complex of activities concerned with production, distribution, exchange and consumption. However, the purely economic aspects of these activities, which form the subject matter of theoretical and applied economics, are outside the scope of this book.

The second part of the book, constituting the second level of analysis, is concerned with the internal structure of industry and the roles which individuals play in that structure. Organization theory is the link between systems analysis and work organizations. Our concern, there fore, is with attempts to define organizational structures and processes. Particular attention is given to authority and technology as aspects of work organizations. These include the structure of management, informal organization, technology and technical change, and some key problems in industrial relations between management and unions. Again, the emphasis is on knitting aspects of sociological theory with historical and functional aspects of the structure of industrial organiza tion.