Organizations as Instruments of Social Change in Postindustrial Societies

There are two ways of looking at the relationship between organizations and society. One features the impact of society on the organization, the social environment; the other attends to the impact on society of the organization and its appetite for resources. The first shows organizations lagging in their cultural prescriptions, the second shows them leading. Both are right. The relationship is circular. Because the work organization, is the principal agent of distribution of society's resources, both material and immaterial, it is a splendid fulcrum for a sociotechnical Archimedes.