Bijdrage van het actionalisme van A. Touraine tot een organisatietypologie

Samenvatting

"Actionalism," as it is developed by A. Touraine in the SOCIOLOGY OF ACTION (Paris, France: Seuil, 1965) is study of behavior as it is oriented towards goals; it is like functionalism (behavior in a certain system of SR) & structuralism (the search for symbolic structure of behavior). Soc behavior can be analyzed as a dialectical relation of "creation" & "control" by a sujet historique (historical subject). All soc & cultural values & orientations have their origins & explication in those 2 central soc processes. Touraine's typology of org is built upon the tension between goals & means & in the relation between leaders & members in an org. From this double dialectic the following is derived: participation/initiative & integration/revendication. There are 4 levels (or types) of each of these 4 processes: (1) org coercive, (2) org instrumentale, (3) org integrative, & (4) org representative. This typology of org's can be contrasted with another by A. Etzioni (see SA 0508/A7172) concerning alienated involvement, calculative involvement, & moral involvement. In both typologies the org (as a polarity of members & manag) is considered as a necessary entrance into the sociol'al problematic (for Touraine this is the value orientation, for Etzioni the order of soc life). The same soc processes are used as criteria for the typologies (forms of authority with their implications). However, Etzioni thinks the power types are observable while for Touraine his types are only instruments of analysis. Etzioni's types are based upon the simple relation of power-orientedness towards power. Touraine's relation is more complex: actors-org-sujet historique. This introduction of the complex interdependency of participation, revendication, initiative, & integration in the sociol of org's which is the value of Touraine's typology offers some critical remarks: (a) actionalism is formalistic because like functionalism, the cadre of relevance itself, sujet historique, becomes the object of study; (b) the subtle dialectical relations between "creation," "control," "relation," "orienting goals," etc, are lacking in his explanation of industr society; & (c) the sujet historique (labor), as being the only goal of society, gives Touraine's theory some metaphysical aspects. H. van de Belt.