Abstract
This chapter discusses the sources of modern social order by dissecting the issue of power at three levels of analysis in descending order: macro, meso, and micro. While existing theories of power either treat power as a causal force originating within macro entities, or as an exercise in leveraging and positioning within micro-level social relationships, this chapter probes power dynamics at the organizational level. It first of all describes historically how organizations became the major avenue in which power is mediated and regulated in our present social world. It contends that organizational rules, routines, differentiation, and depersonalization obscure power discretions and reduce the perception of domination. Yet, the pluralistic and generative logic of power production in organizations also create unexpected opportunities of innovation and empowerment. By drawing attention to the distinctive forms and nature of power relations at this meso-level, the chapter finally extends power analysis from the macro and micro-level to analytical interactions among all three levels of analyses. Power flows both upwards and downwards, we argue, so that the interaction and conversion of different forms of power at different levels can generate new sets of emergent and interstitial structures and relations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Abrutyn, S. (2013a). Revisiting institutionalism in sociology: Putting the “institution” back in institutional analysis. New York: Routledge.
Abrutyn, S. (2013b). Reconceptualizing the dynamics of religion as a macro-institutional domain. Structure and Dynamics, 6(3), 1–21.
Abrutyn, S., & Lawrence, K. (2010). From chiefdom to state: Toward an integrative theory of the evolution of polity. Sociological Perspectives, 53(3), 419–442.
Adams, J. (2007). The familial state: Ruling families and merchant capitalism in early modern Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bacharach, S. B., & Lawler, E. (1980). Power and politics in organizations: The social psychology of conflict, coalitions, and bargaining. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub.
Barnes, B. (1988). The nature of power. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Bell, R. S., et al. (2000). Power, influence, and legitimacy in organizations: Implications of three theoretical research programs. In S. Bacharach & E. J. Lawler (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations (Vol. 17, pp. 131–177). Greenwich: JAI Press.
Blau, P. M. (1956). Bureaucracy in modern society. New York: Random House.
Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley.
Blau, P. M., & Schoenherr, R. A. (1971). Structure of organizations. New York: Basic Books.
Bourdieu, P. (1980). The logic of practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996a). The rules of art: Genesis and structure of the literature field. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996b). The state nobility. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2015). On the state. Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P., et al. (1994). Rethinking the state: Genesis and structure of the bureaucratic field. Sociological Theory, 12(1), 1–18.
Burawoy, M. (1982). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Carpenter, D. P. (2010). Reputation and power: Organizational image and pharmaceutical regulation at the FDA. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Clegg, S. (2009). Foundations of organization power. Journal of Power, 2(1), 35–64.
Coleman, J. S. (1974). Power and the structure of society. New York: W. W Norton & Company.
Coleman, J. S., Katz, E., & Menzel, H. (1966). Medical innovation: A diffusion study. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Cook, K. S., & Richard, M. E. (1978). Power, equity and commitment in exchange networks. American Sociological Review, 43(5), 721–739.
Dahl, R. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral Science, 2(3), 201–208.
Dahl, R. (1961). Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Davis, G. F. (2009). Managed by the markets. New York: Oxford University Press.
DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphisms and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1993). The political systems of empires. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1995). Power, trust, and meaning: Essays in sociological theory and analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Emerson, R. M. (1962). Power-dependence relations. American Sociological Review, 27, 31–41.
Emerson, R. M. (1964). Power-dependence relations: Two experiments. Sociometry, 27, 282–298.
Espeland, W., & Sauder, M. (2007). Rankings and reactivity: How public measures recreate social worlds1. American Journal of Sociology, 113(1), 1–40.
Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2012). A theory of fields. New York: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.
Galbraith, J. K. (1958). The affluent society: the economics of the age of opulence-a literate and expert revision of the basic ideas. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gorski, P. (2013). Bourdieusian theory and historical analysis. In P. Gorski (Ed.), Bourdieu and historical analysis. Durham: Duke University Press.
Hall, D. H. (1987). Careers and socialization. Journal of Management, 13(2), 301–321.
Harcourt, B. E. (2011). The illusion of free markets: Punishment and the myth of natural order. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Jessop, B. (1995). The regulation approach, governance and post-Fordism: Alternative perspectives on economic and political change? Economy and Society, 24(3), 307–333.
Johnson, V. (2007). What is organizational imprinting: Cultural entrepreneurship in the founding of the Paris opera. American Journal of Sociology, 113(1), 97–127.
Lamont, M. (2002). The dignity of working men: Morality and the boundaries of race, class, and immigration. New York: Harvard University Press.
Lukes, S. (2005). Power: A radical view. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mann, M. (2012a). The sources of social power: Volume 4, globalizations, 1945–2011. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M. (2012b). The sources of social power: Volume 1, a history of power from the beginning to ad 1760. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M. (2012c). The sources of social power: Volume 2, the rise of classes and nation-states, 1760–1914 (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M. (2012d). The sources of social power: Volume 3, global empires and revolution, 1890–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Michels, R. (1959). Political parties: A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. New York: Dover.
Padgett, J. F., & Powell, W. (2012). The emergence of organizations and markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pfeffer, J. (1981). Power in organizations. Cambridge: Ballinger Pub Co.
Poggi, G. (2001). Forms of power. Cambridge: Polity.
Powell, W., & DiMaggio, P. (Eds.). (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Reed, I. (2013). Power: Relational, discursive, and performative dimensions. Sociological Theory, 31(3), 193–218.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Berger, J. (1986). Expectations, legitimation, and dominance behavior in groups. American Sociological Review, 51, 603–617.
Rohlen, T. P. (1979). For harmony and strength: Japanese white-collar organization in anthropological perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rueschemeyer, D. (1986). Power and the division of labor. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Scott, W. R. (1992). Organizations: Rational, natural and open systems. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Scott, J. C. (1999). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott, W. R. (2001). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Selznick, P. (2010). TVA and the grass roots; a study in the sociology of formal organization. Charleston, South Carolina: Nabu Press
Simmel, G., & Wolff, K. H. (1964). The sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe: Free Press.
March, H. A. & Simon, J. G., (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.
Stainback, K., Tomaskovic-Devey, D., & Skaggs, S. (2010). Organizational approaches to inequality: Inertia, relative power, and environments. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 225–247.
Steinmetz, G. (2007). The devil’s handwriting: Precoloniality and the German colonial state in Qingdao, Samoa, and southwest Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stinchcomebe, A. L. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In J. G. March (Ed.), Handbook of organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company.
Stinchcomebe, A. L. (2001). When formality works: Authority and abstraction in law and organizations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Teiwes, F. C. (1984). Leadership, legitimacy, and conflict in China: From a charismatic Mao to the politics of succession. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958–1990. American Journal of Sociology, 105(3), 801–843.
Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (2008). Institutional logic. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin-Andersson, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 99–129). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective: A new approach to culture, structure and process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tilly, C. (1999). Durable inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tuner, J. H. (2012). Theoretical principles of sociology, volume 3: Mesodynamics. New York: Springer.
Veblen, T. (1934). The theory of the leisure class: An economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York: Modern Library.
Wanous, J. P., Reichers, A. E., & Malik, S. D. (1984). The organizational socialization and group development: Toward an integrative perspective. Academy of Management Review, 9(4), 670–683.
Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organizations. New York: Oxford University.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weber, M. (2004). The vocation lectures. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
William, W., Nocera, J. (2002). The Organizational men. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, Y., Polillo, S. (2016). Power in Organizational Society: Macro, Meso and Micro. In: Abrutyn, S. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61601-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32250-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)