Social Action Theory

Social Action Theory

Introduction

The theory of 'social action' or 'structuration' was first used and described by Max Webber. However, a very significant interpretation was done by Anthony Gibbons in his work of 'the constitution of society' (Spiegel, 2005). The concept given by Gibbons focuses on defining that both structures and agents are important constituents of social systems and that no one constituent has any supremacy over the other.

The concept of organization proposed under the structuration and social action theory is opposite to the concepts of the institution and contingency approach. It describes organizational structure as a combination of technological environment and interaction of human characters. It considers institutions as a process based on the ontological and epistemological features (Albano and Masino et al., 2010). This theory suggests that if human interactions are not involved in the research, then an important detail of the complex process of introduction of new technology is missed out.

Discussion

The structuration theory has been used by many researchers in order to analyze the impact of human interaction in the formal and informal hierarchies of organization on the success or failure of implementation of some new strategy or technology. One such research and case analysis was carried out by Russell L. Kahn on the effect of introduction of a new technology on informal organizational structures.

Case Analysis

The case of analyzing the competence of the social action theory was based on the study of two universities. Particularly, this case analyzed the impact of implementation of new technology in the records and archive departments based on the use and absence of informal communication done by the department in the hierarchy. This research was carried out in two phases. The first stage was dedicated to a comparative analysis of the processes of both the universities. The second phase was to thoroughly evaluate the reasons of success of new technology in one of the universities that continued the program.

University A used the elements of social action theory properly. The manager of the Archive department introduced the electronic record management system. The second step was to address the agent component of the theory. An imaging committee, based on senior administrators and archive department manager was made to execute new record management techniques in the university. The record manager developed alliances with the administrator, faculty, registrar and graduate studies department. This interaction was developed by inviting administrators from different hierarchies to seminars, trainings and workshops about the new record management system. In fact, a week was celebrated in the campus named as the Annual National Record Management day, which further helped in highlighting the importance of record management among all the hierarchical levels.

The informal interaction strengthened further when a new budget disbursement process was introduced in the university. This new system made each department responsible for its own budget head. Thus, record manager started interacting with all the departments to help them in using an efficient record management system. By doing this, the record manager achieved an important objective of bringing every department ...