The Building of Democratic Organizations: An Embryological Metaphor.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Toronto. I gratefully acknowledge Robert L. Cafferata, developmental biologist, for assistance with this explication of embryological principles; Anne McMahon, sociologist, for criticism and encouragement; and Deanna Alton, Martha Hartley, and Jane Schmidt for clerical support. This paper proposes an embryological metaphor for the development of bureaucracy and formal democracy in voluntary associations. It assumes that bureaucratization and democratization (defined as the extension of formal democracy) are interdependent processes insofar as members expand formally democratic procedures to counteract the hierarchical tendencies of bureaucracy. They are complementary mechanisms for the control of decision making by members. This paper shows how four principles of embryological development -irreversibility, canalization, induction, and vulnerabilitymay explain patterns of bureaucratization and democratization in organizations. The embryological approach extends the ecological approach to differentiation in organizations through its focus on "genetic" workings and shows how these may interact with environmental forces to produce enduring organizational forms.