Max Weber and the sociology of organization

In today's organizational sociology, organizations are usually regarded as late achievements of modernity in the history of mankind. Max Weber is repeatedly cited as the supposed guarantor of this thesis. But neither his type of 'bureaucratic rule' nor his concept of 'rational work organization' - although both are tailored to modern conditions - contain, on closer inspection, compelling arguments for a principled limitation of organizations as such to modernity. Both actually reach their depth of focus only in contrast to 'pre-modern' forms of organization. A sociology of organization that wants to refer to Max Weber's work while avoiding the numerous common misunderstandings of its reception must broaden its historical view and consider the possibility of 'pre-modern organizations'.

Philipp Jakobs is a research assistant at the Chair of Cultural Sociology at the University of Bonn, where he is doing his doctorate on economic organizations from a historical-sociological perspective.