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We argue that earlier characterizations of clients are inadequate in considering the complexities of organizational-client relations. Some writers assume that client alienation is an inevitable outcome of certain types of bureaucratic structures (e.g., welfare). We show that in the face of large service organizations, some clients fail to experience significant amounts of alienation by forcing organizations to vacate traditional bureaucratic forms and processes. The lack of alienation is accounted for by clients' expertise, political organization, and their access to bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of bureaucratic-professional conflict has generated empirical findings which strain the explanatory capacities of the functional scheme which has guided much of the research. It is argued here that a dialectical approach should now replace the functional approach to the study of bureaucratic-professional conflict. A dialectical approach linking bureaucratic-professional conflict to fundamental contradictions in organizations ia proposed. Research should be focused on the contingencies affecting the occurrence, form, and intensity of conflict. A processual mode of analysis concentrated on the redefinition and re-negotiation of order in major event-sequences is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

be dealt with on a sociological level of analysis. An adequate classification of norms should generate terms that are useful to social system analysis in particular and delineate relevant factors in the social stimulus setting in which individuals function. With this position before us, we shall posit a classification of norms which consists of the following terms: group norm, organizational norm, collective norm, intergroup norm, interorganizational norm, intercollective norm, inter group-organizational norm, inter group-collective norm, and inter organizational-collective norm. Each of these terms is tied to a sociological referent, that is, to a set of individuals that can be differentiated in sociocultural terms. Nisbet (1966:6) has recently defined and discussed the history of five unit-ideas which he considers to be central to the sociological tradition: community, authority, status, the sacred, and alienation. Another unitidea central to the sociological tradition which might appropriately be added to this list is that of social norm. Most sociologists considering the concept of social norm in this light would agree that it is fundamental to the analysis of social structure, to the social-psychological study of human behavior, and that it would fit Nisbet's criteria for a unit-idea. Definitions of norm abound in the literature. Numerous and various criteria have been employed as bases for proposing classifications of norms. Yet, while most authors in the area recognize, explicitly or implicitly, the theoretical relevance of the concept to the analysis of social structure, no classificatory scheme has sought systematically to differentiate kinds of norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Max WEBER utilized the ideal-type in various ways. One of them was in his analysis of bureaucracy as a form of social organization. Generally, he stated that the bureaucratic type of administration is "from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings." More specifically, he stated the following characteristics of the ideal-type of bureaucracy: (1) It consists of a formation of offices with each office having a specified "span of control," and specified duties and responsibilities. (2) The offices are organized into a hierarchy with each lower office under the control and supervision of the next higher one. (3) Operations are governed by a system of rules and consist of the application of these rules to particular cases. (4) Each office is occupied by an official who conducts himself in a spirit of formalistic impersonality. (5) The occupancy of an office is based on technical competency, and the hierarchy is a career line for the office occupant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]