COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONSachieve flexibility included reductions in size, ex-
pansion of the scope of employee responsibilities
through cross-training and broadened job descrip-
tions, reductions in layers of management, and
maintenance of long-term relationships with sup-
pliers as an alternative to vertical integration. Many
of these devices rely on strengthening the internal
social networks that link an organization’s person-
nel as well as the external ones linking it to the
environment. Such linkages enable organizations
to remain adaptable, cope with market uncertain-
ties, and take advantage of opportunities for
learning.
CONCLUSIONComplex organizations are the building blocks of
industrial and post industrial societies, enabling
people to accomplish tasks otherwise beyond their
individual competencies. Organizations also help
create and sustain structures of opportunities and
constraints that affect nearly every aspect of socie-
ties. Sociologists and other social scientists are
grappling with a variety of complementary and
conflicting perspectives on organizations, rang-
ing from microanalytic interpretive views to
macroevolutionary institutional and ecological
views. Regardless of perspective, research on or-
ganizations has shown its capacity to interest, in-
form, and provoke us, as sociologists investigate
these social constructions that figure so promi-
nently in our lives.
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