Everything about Social Institutions totally explained
» This article is about a sociological concept. For zoosemiotics term, see Social animal
Social organization or
social institution, is a group of
social positions, connected by
social relations, performing a
social role. It can be also defined in a narrow sense as any
institution in a
society that works to
socialize the groups or people in it. Common examples include
education,
governments,
families,
economic systems,
religions, and any people or groups that you've
social interaction with. It is a major sphere of social life organized to meet some human needs.
Social organizations can take many forms, depending on the
social context. For example, for family context the corresponding social organization is the
extended family. In the business context a social organization may be an
enterprise,
company,
corporation, etc. In the educational context, it many be a
school,
university, etc. In the political context it may be a
government,
political party, etc. Commonly, experts officially recognize these five major social institutions that have been evident in some way in every
civilization in
history:
government,
religion,
education,
economy, and
family.
To give a simple example: productive institutions are dependent on educational institutions for a skilled workforce, educational institutions are dependent on the government for their funding, and government institutions, in turn, rely on productive institutions to create wealth to finance government spending. Sociologist call this institutional interdependence.
Max Weber concluded that in the history of mankind, organisations evolved towards
rationalization in the form of a
rational-legal organization, like
bureaucracy.
Organization vs. institution
The term organization is in sociology sometimes used interchangeably with the term institution, as when referring to a formal organization like a hospital or a prison. In other parts of sociology, such as the
sociology of organizations and especially
new institutionalism (also new
institutional economics in economics and
historical institutionalism in political science), 'organization' and 'institution' refer to two different phenomena. Organizations are a group of individuals pursuing a set of collective goals with established roles, methods of coordination, procedures, culture and space (Jonnsson, 2007). Organizations can include political bodies (political parties, Congress, Department of Corrections), social groups (churches, clubs, athletic associations), economic bodies (unions, cooperatives, corporations), and educational bodies (schools, training centers, colleges) (North, 1990). Institutions are ideas about how something should be done, look or be constituted in order to be viewed as legitimate. Institutions can be defined as a “stable collection of social practices consisting of easily recognized roles coupled with underlying norms and a set of rules or conventions defining appropriate behavior for, and governing relations among, occupants of these roles,” (Jonsson, 2007, p. 5). Institutions provide structure, guidelines for behavior and shape human interaction (Martin, 2004; North, 1990; Scott, 1995). Institutions are also characterized by social practices that reoccur or are repeated over time by members of a group (Martin). Institutions may or may not involve organizations. The issue is complicated by the fact that one may talk of institutions that govern organizations and the organization as an institution.
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