Describe the informal structure in bureaucracies and list its positive and negative aspects
What will be an ideal response?
An organization's informal structure is composed of those aspects of participants' day-to-day activities and interactions that ignore, bypass, or do not correspond with the official rules and procedures of the bureaucracy.
An example is an informal "grapevine" that spreads information (with varying degrees of accuracy) much faster than do official channels of communication, which tend to be slow and unresponsive. The informal structure has also been referred to as work culture because it includes the ideology and practices of workers on the job. Workers create this work culture in order to confront, resist, or adapt to the constraints of their jobs, as well as to guide and interpret social relations on the job. Two schools of thought have emerged with regard to the positive and negative aspects of informal structure. Traditional management theories are based on the assumption that people are basically lazy and motivated by greed. Consequently, informal groups must be controlled (or eliminated) in order to ensure greater worker productivity. By contrast, the other school of thought asserts that people are capable of cooperation. Thus, organizations should foster informal groups that permit people to work more efficiently toward organizational goals.
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In the classic formulation of social psychologist Gordon Allport, intergroup prejudice can be reduced by contacts between group members, especially if these contacts __________________________________
a. involve equal status between groups in the arena for interaction b. involve common goals c. are not competitive d. have institutional support for equality and the contact at hand e. all of the above
Racist practices that become part of the social practices and institutions of a society:
A) prejudice B) discrimination C) symbolic racism D) institutional racism
The belief of a group of people of a distinct race that their culture is superior to other cultures is an example of a __________, but the law that prohibits people from showing discrimination against others on the basis of race is an example of a __________.
a. more; value b. value; norm c. more; folkway d. norm; value
Target has attracted a lot of attention in the past few years for changing how it advertises toys. Why is toy advertisement an important topic for sociologists to pay attention to?
Please provide the best answer for the statement