"Alfred Chandler and the Sociology of Organizations"

"In this essay, I take up the task of considering Chandler's contributions to the sociology of organizations. In order to do that, I need to consider what constituted the sociology of organizations in the 1960s and Chandler's critique of those theories.
Chandler’s implicit critiques of existing organizational theories played an important role in the subsequent development of organizational theory. But, while Chandler raised lots of important questions, his view of corporations was almost immediately under assault from several quarters of the sociology of organizations. The subsequent developments in the sociology of organizations offered critiques of Chandler’s perspective and evidence that his "heroic" managers were not the whole story. Chandler's work still offers insight into the larger questions, but his take on the ultimate role of the corporation in the economy is more in doubt from the perspective of the sociology of organizations. "

Source: Neil Fligstein (CASBS fellow 1995), "Alfred Chandler and the Sociology of Organizations" (February 25, 2008). Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Working Paper Series. Paper iirwps-161-07.

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