Biographical Memoirs Volume 85 (2004) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Peter Michael Blau
Peter Michael Blau
Pages 20-39
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 21... ...
He was one of the founders of the field of organizational sociology and the coauthor of a highly influential study of the American occupational structure that transformed the study of social inequality and mobility. His contributions to conceptualizing and measuring the parameters of societal systems continue to inspire and guide current theory and research.
|
From page 22... ...
While he was originally attracted to "grand theory," he was converted by his graduate training at Columbia University to value theories of the "middle-range." Later, reading extensively in the philosophy of science, he developed a strong interest in formal, deductive theorizing. Throughout his entire career, however, Peter blended abstract ideas and empirical indicators and evidence.
|
From page 23... ...
He was strongly committed to the conduct of positivist, empirical scientific research, rather than a looser, more humanistic "social thought." And he quickly mastered the skills of the entrepreneurial investigator, designing data
|
From page 24... ...
Ironically, he was released soon thereafter, when the National Socialists came to power and lifted the ban on political activity (Blau, 2002)
|
From page 25... ...
2) The unlikely connection was successfully made, and Peter sailed to the United States and with his refugee scholarship attended Elmhurst College in Illinois, majoring in sociology.
|
From page 26... ...
Lynd (1970) , a scholar noted for his work on class and for translating sociological ideas into social reform efforts, Peter quickly fell under the influence of Robert K
|
From page 27... ...
He examined large samples of distinct types of organizations, including public bureaucracies, universities, and manufacturing organizations. Data were variously drawn from informant reports, official records, organization charts, personnel manuals, job descriptions, and performance ratings.
|
From page 28... ...
size increases scale-the average size of organizational subunits -- a development likely to be associated with administrative economies. Hence, size has two analytically distinct effects, which account for the indeterminant and conflicting association observed between size and bureaucratization.
|
From page 29... ...
He especially delighted in a year at Cambridge as Pitt Professor and a senior fellow of King's College (and brought back to the United States the rather formal custom of announcing a monthly date when he and his wife, Judith, would be "at home" for drinks)
|
From page 30... ...
The work embodied and popularized major new research methods -- notably path analysis -- and launched a novel approach to mobility processes that would guide a generation of work, giving rise to an entire school of "status attainment" research. The core question was to what extent factors other than parents' status explained children's status -- operationalized mainly as education, occupation, and income.
|
From page 31... ...
He treated social relations as emergent phenomena, not mere collective aggregates of individual phenomena -- and his approach to exchange theory differed from that of George Homans (1961) on just this point.
|
From page 32... ...
Even those with much in common are not just alike, which is after all the basis for an exchange relationship. Judith and Reva pushed Peter to see how cultural meaning matters alongside strategy and structure.
|
From page 33... ...
Together with his teachers, Merton and Lazarsfeld, themselves only slightly older, he and others of approximately the same generation developed lines of inquiry that became the main branches of sociology, and they developed analytic approaches and a characteristic way of relating theory to research that shaped the "mainstream" of the field as it matured into a stable and cumulative science. Peter pioneered the sociology of organizations, turning the insights of Weber, Merton, and others into a highly productive research program using methods ranging from ethnographic observation to comparative statistical analysis.
|
From page 34... ...
2002. Colleagues remember Peter Blau.
|
From page 35... ...
Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Schwartz, J
|
From page 36... ...
57:305-316. 1964 Exchange and Power in Social Life.
|
From page 37... ...
The American Occupational Structure. New York: Wiley.
|
From page 38... ...
2002 Reflections on a career as a theorist. In New Directions in Contempo rary Sociological Theory, eds.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.