SOCI 410: Formal Organizations and Bureaucracies

Course Overview

In every moment of every day, organizations and bureaucracies affect life in countless subtle and obvious ways. In our post-industrial Western society, formal organizations order our lives and fulfill our needs. Despite their immense influence, most organizations are understood in only vague, shallow, and unspecific ways. This course aims to provide you with a thorough sociological understanding of organizations. We will look at where organizations come from, how they change, and how they die. We will examine the ways organizations are structured, the ways they act, and the relationships between individuals in organizations, between individuals and organizations, and between organizations. A critical and rigorous understanding of organizations and organizational behavior underpins our understanding of the world around us. This course will give you the tools to comprehend organizational forms and processes at work in your life and in your world.

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Course Objectives

In this course you will:

• become familiar with important theories of organization
• evaluate and compare the merits of each theory
• gain an understanding of the dynamic relationships between and within organizations
• learn the role of formal organizations in contemporary life
• improve your ability to communicate, express, and discuss ideas
• improve your writing skills.

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Required Reading

There will be required reading for each lesson. The reading assignments will be listed at the beginning of each part of the lessons. It is essential that you complete the reading assignment as early as possible in each lesson period so that you will be able to participate in the online discussions, follow the material presented in the lessons, and successfully complete assignments. 

Textbooks

There are two required texts for this class. These textbooks can be obtained from Friday Center Books & Gifts at the Friday Center either by ordering online or by printing and mailing the book order form.

• Aldrich, Howard and Martin Ruef. Organizations Evolving (2nd Edition)
• Scott, W. Richard and Gerald F. Davis. Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems Perspectives (6th Edition)

Electronic Reserve (E-reserve) Articles

Additional readings will be available in electronic format via the UNC-Chapel Hill Library Electronic Reserve System. See Course Mechanics for information on accessing the e-reserve system.

It is my longstanding policy to assign primary materials to read (rather than secondary accounts of primary materials). While some instructors feel that students are not prepared to understand concepts and ideas directly from their source, I disagree. With a bit of extra work, all UNC students can engage with and understand original texts. This means, though, that not everything will be perfectly clear upon first glance. That is why we have e-mail and discussion forums.  I encourage you to use these tools to allow us to work through any confusion together.

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Course Format

The online format offers us challenges as well as opportunities. When I teach, I try to foster interaction between students. I believe that you will learn much more by engaging with problems and working through them on your own and with your peers than by having me tell you the answers. Thus, I expect each of you to participate in class activities and to help each other understand the material. We all have diverse organizational experiences in our lives and we will share these and use them to shed light on, understand, and critique theories of organizations. 

To facilitate this exchange, we will use a discussion forum. I expect each of you to post regularly and to interact with each other in this medium. If you have questions on readings, for instance, the discussion forum is a great way to find answers. Chances are that if you are confused, others are too. By using the forum in this way, the whole class can come together and work toward understanding the material.

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Course Structure

This course is divided into eight lessons. Each lesson corresponds to approximately two weeks of classroom time in a traditional course and contains three or four parts. You should work progressively through the parts of each lesson rather than skipping around. For example, in Lesson 1, you will complete the readings and exercises for Part 1 before moving on to Part 2, and so on.

In each lesson, you will be given reading assignments and supporting lesson notes to read, reading questions, guidelines for posting to the discussion forum, and various independent or group exercises. Unless otherwise specified, all assignments are to be completed by the end of the lesson period. If the assignment involves posting to the discussion forum, I encourage you to make your initial post as early in the lesson period as possible in order to give others (and yourself) an opportunity to respond to other postings. At the end of each lesson you will write a short paper based on a provided topic.

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Assignments and Evaluation

Discussion Forum Participation (10 percent of total grade)

• Think of this as class participation, where you have a chance to learn from others and to demonstrate what you have already learned.
• You will be expected to contribute to class discussion forums on various topics including readings, organizations in the news, and organizational principles in everyday life.
• You will have the option of posting anonymously. Do not engage in personal attacks or create a hostile atmosphere on the discussion board. Anonymous posts will not count towards your grade.
• You can start new threads (conversations) within forums. Be sure to start your threads and posts in the appropriate forums. (For example: if your posting is about readings, use the readings forum.) If there is a thread on the topic you want to post on, please comment within the existing thread instead of creating a new thread.
• Your discussion forum posts will be graded each lesson.

Course Wiki Participation (5 percent of total grade)

• We will be using a new feature in Blackboard called “Blackboard Wiki.” (For more about Blackboard, see Course Mechanics.)
• We will create a collaborative Web site, or “wiki,” where you will create, comment on, and edit the content of the site. (Note: it is good online manners to communicate with others before editing content they have posted.)
• You will work collaboratively with each other and with me to create and edit pages of notes and information for each lesson.
• I expect you to refrain from posting inappropriate material or engaging in personal attacks using the wiki.
• At the end of each lesson, if the collective work is effective, your wiki will have a thorough collection of notes, comments, and discussion for use on assignments and exam preparation.
• Your wiki participation will be graded each lesson.

Essays (35 percent of total grade)

• You will write seven essays (one for each of the first seven lessons) in this course—each worth 5 percent of your total grade.
• I will assign questions designed to integrate material from the lesson and apply it to a specific problem or set of problems.
• Each essay will have specific requirements for content, length (one to two typed pages), and format.
• All essays should be typed using a 12 point "normal" font such as Times New Roman and saved in Microsoft Word or Adobe pdf format.
• Essays are due at 5 pm the Monday after the end of the lesson, and should be submitted using the Blackboard "Assignments" area. Do not submit your essays via e-mail.

Lesson Exercises (20 percent of total grade)

• In each lesson, we will explore a concept or idea beyond the text. The lesson exercises will help you with this exploration.
• Lesson exercises will consist of specifically assigned groups and small research, discussion, or written assignments.
• Due dates and instructions vary according to each lesson.

Term Paper (15 percent of total grade)

• In Lesson 5, each of you will propose a topic based on your interests thus far in the course. Guidelines and instructions will be provided.
• You will then research and write a 7- to 10-page paper.
• Lesson 8 will consist of all of us sharing, reading, and commenting on each other's papers.

Final Exam (15 percent of total grade)

• Your final exam will consist of short-answer essays.
• A link to the exam questions will be available in Blackboard during the designated period (see Course Schedule).

Reading Questions

In each lesson, I have provided a list of questions to guide your reading and ensure that you are learning important concepts. Although you are not required to submit your answers for grading, I strongly encourage you to use these questions to help you keep up with your reading assignments, engage with the material, and retain the main ideas of the readings.

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Honor Code

Students will abide by the University’s established Honor Code. Any cheating or plagiarism will be punished according to the sanctions outlined in the Honor Code.

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

The course Web site contains all of your lessons, readings, and assignments. In addition to this site, you will access the following course components through a software package called Blackboard:

• Announcements
• Discussion forums
• Wiki
• Instructor communication (virtual office hours, e-mail)
• Assignment submission
• Exams (to access the final exam)

You will need to log in to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the "SOCI 410" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left side of the screen labeled Announcements, Discussion Forum, and so on.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:  

• If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
• If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), go to the Onyen Web site.
• If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can't locate an exam or discussion forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer.
• If you have other technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).

Library Services and E-reserves

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves.

If you are using an off-campus computer, you will need to enter your ONYEN and password to access the e-reserve system. The UNC library staff is available to assist any students who have difficulties accessing online library resources. If you encounter difficulties, please report your problem by visiting this Web page for reporting a problem.

Communication

I will likely never have the pleasure of meeting most of you face-to-face.  Nonetheless, I expect to communicate frequently with each of you throughout the semester.

You can always get in touch with me through e-mail. It is my policy to answer all course e-mail within one business day. Unless I am replying directly to a message sent from an outside address, all e-mails from me will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail account using Webmail. You can have your Onyen e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward email” on the Onyen Web site.

If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses "blind carbon copy" to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than Hotmail for this course.

It is likely that if you have a question, someone else has the same question.  For queries of this sort, Blackboard offers several useful alternatives. First, the Discussion Forum is great because everyone can benefit from the questions and their answers. Moreover, you can help each other this way. There will also be regularly scheduled virtual office hours in Blackboard. This works like a chat room where we can all “meet” and interact directly with one another. I will send an announcement with these office hours at the beginning of the semester.

Finally, and least efficiently, I have a phone in my office but no voice mail. If you can catch me there, I’ll be happy to chat with you and offer any help over the phone. The number is (919) 962-1007.

Other Questions

If you have questions regarding

• the content of the course and your progress, contact me. There is a link to my e-mail address at the top of every lesson page. Please include "SOCI 410 CCO" and your name in the subject line of your e-mail.
• problems with this Web site, including bad links, contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center
• enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on, contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).

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Course Schedule

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Lesson 1