Social organization

Short description: Pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups

Not to be confused with Social club or Organization.

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thumb In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups.[1][2] Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, structure, division of labor, communication systems, and so on.[3][4]

Because of these characteristics of social organization, people can monitor their everyday work and involvement in other activities that are controlled forms of human interaction. These interactions include: affiliation, collective resources, substitutability of individuals and recorded control. These interactions come together to constitute common features in basic social units such as family, enterprises, clubs, states, etc. These are social organizations.[5]

Common examples of modern social organizations are government agencies,[6][7] NGOs, and corporations.[8][9]

## Contents

* 1 Elements
* 2 Within society
* 3 Collectivism and individualism
* 3.1 Collectivism
* 3.2 Individualism
* 3.3 Regional Associations
* 4 Online
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading

## Elements

Social organizations are present in everyday life. Many people belong to various social structures, both institutional and informal. These include clubs, professional organizations, and religious institutions.[10] Physical proximity with other members can strengthen a sense of community and shared identity within a social organization.[11] While organizations link people with shared interests or goals, membership can also produce boundaries between members and non-members. Social organizations typically have some hierarchical structure.[12] The form that hierarchy takes influences how a group is structured and how stable it tends to be over time.

Four other interactions can also bear on whether a group stays together. A group must have a strong affiliation within itself. To be affiliated with an organization means having a recognized connection and acceptance within that group, along with an obligation to return to it. The organization draws power through the collective resources of its affiliates. Those affiliates often have something invested in those resources, which motivates continued participation. At the same time, the organization must account for the substitutability of individuals: it needs affiliates and their resources to survive, but it also needs to be able to replace departing members. Given all these dynamics, internal coordination can be difficult. Recorded control — writing things down — makes processes clearer and keeps the organization coherent.[5]

## Within society

Social organizations within society change over time.[13] Smaller-scale social organizations include groups that form from common interests and conversations. These small organizations — bands, clubs, sports teams — have the same structural characteristics as large-scale organizations, even if their membership is far smaller. They still interact and function in similar ways.

A school sports team is a clear example. Members share a common goal and work together toward it. Different roles or positions divide the labor. The structure, while informal, is real: there are coaches, captains, and players, each with distinct responsibilities.

Large-scale organizations typically involve some degree of bureaucracy: a set of rules, specializations, and a hierarchical system, which allows them to pursue efficiency at scale. These organizations tend to rely on impersonal authority, where the position of power is structurally defined and kept separate from personal relationships, so that operations run predictably regardless of who holds a given role.[14]

Whether bureaucracy and hierarchical management are effective also depends on the structure of work within the organization. Organizations where departments operate independently of one another — called parallel organizations — do not necessarily benefit from top-down hierarchical control, because the diversity of functions makes centralized coordination difficult. Interdependent organizations, where departments rely on each other to complete tasks, tend to be better suited to hierarchical management because the work requires coordination across the whole.[14]

## Collectivism and individualism

"Collectivism" redirects here. For other uses, see Collectivism (disambiguation).

See also: Social:Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

Societies can be organized through individualistic or collectivist means. Each orientation has documented associations with different patterns in economic behavior, legal and political institutions, and social relations. The organization of a society is shaped by its cultural, historical, social, political, and economic context, which in turn governs how members interact.

Collectivist or individualist orientations can exist within a single broader society.[15] Studies have examined differences in collectivism between regions of the US[16][17] and between regions of China.[18][19] Researchers have also examined historical factors linked to these differences, such as histories of rice and wheat farming in different regions of China[20] and patterns of frontier settlement in the western United States.[21]

### Collectivism

In collectivism, the core unit is the collective group.[22] Individuals are seen as fundamentally connected through relationships and group membership.[22] In this context, groups are defined as networks of interpersonal relationships.[23] The collectivist orientation places emphasis on collective identity and collective agency, and values tend to prioritize the group over the individual.[15] Some researchers measure collectivism through behaviors such as living arrangements, rates of multi-generational households, and divorce rates.[24][25][26] Psychologically, collectivism is associated with what researchers call "holistic thought," which attends to relationships between objects, context, and a broader range of information simultaneously.[22]

### Individualism

An individualist orientation places emphasis on the individual through self-identity, individual agency, and values that tend to prioritize the individual over the collective.[15] Psychologically, individualist orientations are associated with a tendency to distinguish, separate, and contrast information rather than integrate or assimilate it.[22] Individualist social organization has been linked to different institutional forms, including arrangements that prioritize personal autonomy, contract-based cooperation, and formal legal structures for coordinating behavior between people who do not share strong group ties.[27]

### Regional Associations

Most research on individualism has been conducted in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands.[22][28] Most research on collectivism has come from East Asia.[22]

European data has drawn predominantly from Germany and the Netherlands.[22] Scandinavian countries (which have a more egalitarian culture), southern Europe, and Eastern Europe are underrepresented in this data.[22] Africa, West Asia, and Latin American countries are also absent from much of the research.[22] The literature does not substantially cover countries with Islamic culture or countries experiencing within-group conflict.[22]

## Online

Social organizations can exist in digital spaces, and online communities show patterns of interaction similar to those in in-person social groups.[29] The technology allows people to engage with social organizations without being in the same physical location.

Although the characteristics of online organizations differ in some ways from those of in-person groups, the structural parallels are clear. Various forms of online communication allow people to talk, share interests, and maintain membership in a group without physical presence. These online groups still function as social organizations because of the relationships within them and the shared interest in sustaining the community.

## See also

* Allocentrism
* Communitarianism
* Cooperation
* Corporation
* Government agency
* Institution
* Total institution
* Organization
* Postliberalism
* Social group
* Social network
* Social structure

## References

1. ↑ Janice L. Dreachslin; M. Jean Gilbert; Beverly Malone (5 November 2012). Diversity and Cultural Competence in Health Care: A Systems Approach. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 244–. ISBN 978-1-118-28428-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=v0lBvKfVZFoC&pg=PA244. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
2. ↑ Janice Humphreys; Jacquelyn C. Campbell (28 July 2010). Family Violence and Nursing Practice, Second Edition. Springer Publishing Company. pp. 21–. ISBN 978-0-8261-1828-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=OKC4S5BZaP0C&pg=PA21. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
3. ↑ Susan A. Wheelan (1 June 2005). The Handbook of Group Research and Practice. SAGE. pp. 122–. ISBN 978-0-7619-2958-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=0M4o0VyDPwkC&pg=PA122. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
4. ↑ Bernard Chapais; Carol M. Berman (4 March 2004). Kinship and Behavior in Primates. Oxford University Press. pp. 478–. ISBN 978-0-19-514889-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=w4jHg1SkcaIC&pg=PA478. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ahrne, Goran (1994). Social Organizations: Interaction Inside, Outside, and Between Organizations. London, GB: SAGE Publications Ltd.
6. ↑ Sage Journals Agency and Institutions in Organization Studies
7. ↑ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Social Institutions
8. ↑ HeinOnline The Evolution of the Corporation as a Social Institution
9. ↑ Oxford Academic Corporate Social Responsibility and institutional theory: new perspectives on private governance
10. ↑ Lim, Chaeyoon; Putnam, Garry D Moyo (December 2010). "Religion, Social Networks, and Life Satisfaction". American Sociological Review 75 (6): 914–933. doi:10.1177/0003122410386686.
11. ↑ Boessen, Adam; Hipp, John R; Smith, Emily J; Butts, Carter T; Nagle, Nicholas N; Almquist, Zack (June 2014). "Networks, Space, and Residents' Perception of Cohesion" (in en). American Journal of Community Psychology (Black Science Ltd.) 53 (3–4): 747–461. doi:10.1007/s10464-014-9639-1. ISSN 0091-0562. PMID 24496720. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gj0h012. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
12. ↑ Moody, James; White, Douglas R (February 2003). "Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Concept of Social Groups" (in en). American Sociological Review (American Sociological Association) 68 (1): 103–127. doi:10.2307/3088904. ISSN 0003-1224. http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/18s1w75d. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
13. ↑ Sutton, John R (December 2003). "Research in the Sociology of Organizations, vol. 19: Social Structure and Organizations Revisited" (in en). Administrative Science Quarterly (Sage Publications, Inc.) 48 (4): 715–717. doi:10.2307/3556649. ISSN 0001-8392.
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Simpson, Richard L; Simpson, Ida Harper (1964). Social Organization and Behavior. New York: Wiley. pp. 300.
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Chen, Chao (2023). "Individualism-Collectivism: A Review of Conceptualization and Measurement". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.350. ISBN 978-0-19-022485-1. https://oxfordre.com/business/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.001.0001/acrefore-9780190224851-e-350.
16. ↑ Havaldar, Shreya; Giorgi, Salvatore; Rai, Sunny; Talhelm, Thomas; Guntuku, Sharath Chandra; Ungar, Lyle (June 2024). Duh, Kevin; Gomez, Helena; Bethard, Steven. eds. "Building Knowledge-Guided Lexica to Model Cultural Variation". Proceedings of the 2024 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (Volume 1: Long Papers) (Mexico City, Mexico: Association for Computational Linguistics): 211–226. doi:10.18653/v1/2024.naacl-long.12. https://aclanthology.org/2024.naacl-long.12/.
17. ↑ Vandello, Joseph A.; Cohen, Dov (August 1999). "Patterns of individualism and collectivism across the United States." (in en). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (2): 279–292. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.279. ISSN 1939-1315. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.279.
18. ↑ Talhelm, T.; Zhang, X.; Oishi, S.; Shimin, C.; Duan, D.; Lan, X.; Kitayama, S. (2014-05-09). "Large-Scale Psychological Differences Within China Explained by Rice Versus Wheat Agriculture" (in en). Science 344 (6184): 603–608. doi:10.1126/science.1246850. ISSN 0036-8075. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1246850.
19. ↑ Wei, Liuqing; Talhelm, Thomas; Zhu, Jiong; English, Alexander Scott; Huang, An (2026-02-17). "A Collectivism Index for Investigating Cultural Variation in China across Regions and Time" (in en). Scientific Data. doi:10.1038/s41597-026-06661-1. ISSN 2052-4463. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-026-06661-1.
20. ↑ Talhelm, Thomas; Dong, Xiawei (2024-02-27). "People quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice are more collectivistic than people assigned to farm wheat" (in en). Nature Communications 15 (1): 1782. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w. ISSN 2041-1723. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w.
21. ↑ Kitayama, Shinobu; Conway, Lucian Gideon; Pietromonaco, Paula R.; Park, Hyekyung; Plaut, Victoria C. (2010). "Ethos of independence across regions in the United States: The production-adoption model of cultural change." (in en). American Psychologist 65 (6): 559–574. doi:10.1037/a0020277. ISSN 1935-990X. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0020277.
22. ↑ 22.00 22.01 22.02 22.03 22.04 22.05 22.06 22.07 22.08 22.09 Oyserman, Lee (2008). "Does Culture Influence What and How We Think? Effects of Priming Individualism and Collectivism". Psychological Bulletin 134 (2): 311–342. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.311. PMID 18298274. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/89921/oyserman_lee_2008_psychbulletin.pdf;sequence=1.
23. ↑ Brewer, Marylynn (2007). "Where (who) are collectives in collectivism? Toward conceptual clarification of individualism and collectivism.". Psychological Review 114 (1): 133–151. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.114.1.133. PMID 17227184. https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?start=10&q=collectivism+culture+review&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&t=1755473419799&u=#p=PmLl8LSV3JMJ.
24. ↑ Wei, Liuqing; Talhelm, Thomas; Zhu, Jiong; English, Alexander Scott; Huang, An (2026-02-17). "A Collectivism Index for Investigating Cultural Variation in China across Regions and Time" (in en). Scientific Data. doi:10.1038/s41597-026-06661-1. ISSN 2052-4463. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-026-06661-1.
25. ↑ Yamawaki, Niwako (November 2012). "Within-Culture Variations of Collectivism in Japan" (in en). Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 43 (8): 1191–1204. doi:10.1177/0022022111428171. ISSN 0022-0221. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022022111428171.
26. ↑ Talhelm, T.; Zhang, X.; Oishi, S.; Shimin, C.; Duan, D.; Lan, X.; Kitayama, S. (2014-05-09). "Large-Scale Psychological Differences Within China Explained by Rice Versus Wheat Agriculture". Science 344 (6184): 603–608. doi:10.1126/science.1246850. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1246850.
27. ↑ Greif, Avner (February 1994). "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies". Journal of Political Economy 102 (5): 912–950. doi:10.1086/261959.
28. ↑ Greif, Avner (February 1994). "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies". Journal of Political Economy 102 (5): 912–950. doi:10.1086/261959.
29. ↑ Zhang, Wei; Watts, Stephanie (2008). "Online communities as communities of practice: A case study". Journal of Knowledge Management 12 (4): 55–71. doi:10.1108/13673270810884255. ISSN 1367-3270.

## Further reading

* Scott, John (2015). "collectivism" (in en). A Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-968358-1. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199683581.001.0001/acref-9780199683581-e-321. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
* Pieper, Josef (2017) (in en). Rules of the Game in Social Relationships. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press. ISBN 978-1587317408.

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