Dialectical Organization

This idea emanates from the concept of the process that the social world is in a continual state of becoming. This view evolved as the antithesis to the bureaucracy. In a dialectical organi zation, communication is more horizontal and upward than in a bureaucracy, where communication is vertical and downward. Dialectical organizations are goal oriented and use available means to reach goals. These organizations are flexible and charismatic. Clients are seen as equal to or superior to the organization, and the organization seeks to make the system responsive to the needs of its clients. The major features of a dialectical organization—goals, hierarchies, technology, informal relations, and so on—are functions of social construction.

Dialectical organizations are oriented to change. Rather than being a fixed entity, which characterizes bureaucratic organizations, the dialectical organization is seen to be in a continual state of becoming, a process. Whatever occurs in the organization is the result of goal pursuit. The organization is committed to the concept of progress.

Components of the organization are intertwined rather than isolated. This interconnectedness can be seen when considering the contradictions, that is, ruptures, breaks, or inconsistencies, within an organization. Dialectical organizations are fundamentally based in contradiction growing from distinct, semiautonomous spheres of social action both within and without the organization. They are typically scenes of multiple contradictions, which may permit reorganization or fragmentation.

Contradiction feeds into the social fabric of dialectical organizations. Contradiction constructs the production of process by providing a continuing source of tensions and conflicts, which may shape consciousness and action to change the present order, set limits on and establish the possibility of reconstruction, produce crises that enhance the possibility of reconstruction, and define the limits of a system.

Contradictions may be generated by special interests in the larger society and imposed on an organization. A dialectical organization, such as a prison, often has the dual purpose of rehabilitation and incapacitation. Some contradictions within dialectical organizations directly reflect features of the larger economic-political system. Management-labor conflict, for example, is a product of contradictory arrangements inside dialectical organi zations and sets limits on innovations, on morale levels, and in other areas. The mobility of participants in pursuing their interests and reaching out for alternative structural arrangements is a significant feature of power in dialectical organizations. For more information, see Benson (1977).