Social Structure and Organizations

Organizations populate modern society as the main vehicles for actors to attain their goals. They are, however, creatures of the society in which they exist. This entry explores how scholars have conceptualized the link between organizations and social structures. Beginning with Stinchcombe's seminal 1965 article, scholars have struggled with three questions: What social structures are organizations embedded in? Do those structures present hard or soft constraints on organizations' ability to survive? Can actors in organizations change the direction of their internal organization in such a way as to control their environment? Three main perspectives to these questions in organizational theory are considered: population ecology, institutional theory, and network analysis. A comparison of recent developments in these research programs suggests that while there remain differences, some common themes have emerged.