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The Large-Scale Formal Organization and the Family Primary GroupAuthor(s): Mihail CerneaSource: Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 37, No. 4, Special Section: Macrosociology ofthe Family (Nov., 1975), pp. 927-936Published by: National Council on Family RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/350843Accessed: 29/07/2009 03:08

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T h e Large-Scale F o r m a l Organization n d th e

F a m i l y P r im a r y G r o u p *MIHAIL CERNEA**

Institute of Philosophy, Bucharest

The relationship between thefamily as a primary group and the large formal organi-zation is examined in this paper, the emphasis being on the influence of the familyon theformal organization in which it participates. Data from Romanian coopera-tive farms show that the introduction of the family as a work unit in the structure hasan important impact on the functioning of this type of organization. Data showingpreference for working in family teams as well as their organization and relationshipto the rural cooperative farm are presented and discussed.

A cardinal research problem both for thesociology of organizations as well as familysociology is the relationship between formallarge-scale organizations and primary groups.Our age is one of an unprecedenteddevelopment of formal organizations, what-ever their nature: economic, administrative-bureaucratic, scientific, educational, etc., theefficiency of which is differentially correlatedwith the degree of integration of theirsubgroups. When the family as a socialgrouping is one of the types of groupsincluded in an organization, a very inter-esting question comes up regarding the extent

of influence that the family system is able toexert upon the formal organization.William Goode (1963) has correctly

pointed out that the sociology of the familyshould not confine itself to studying theinfluence of the global society upon the familyas a microgroup. For family sociology to gobeyond parochialism and reach the point ofrelevant theory-building, it has to reverse thequestion and answer another one: in whatways and to what extent does the family as aninstitution influence and control the global

society? Under which circumstances does thefamily act as an independent variable?Of course, such broad theoretical questions

can be answered only through extensiveresearch on a large variety of specific

*The author is indebted to Professors William Goode,Reuben Hill, Alex Inkeles, John Mogey, and H. H.Stahl, as well as to the Editor of this special issue,Professor Constantina Safilios-Rothschild, for theirvaluable comments and suggestions on earlier versions ofthis paper.

**Department of Sociology, Institute of Philosophy,Bucharest, Romania.

instances, in which the relationship betweenformal organizations and family systems can

be clearly identified and analyzed. Thepresent article undertakes the limited task ofanalyzing certain specific aspects relevant tothis relationship.

The contemporary village in Romaniaoffers a propitious social setting for such astudy, since during recent years it hasundergone comprehensive social change dueto nationwide implementation in the country-side of a large scale formal type of organiza-tion: the agricultural producer cooperative.In the following discussion, as far as the fam-

ily system is concerned, we will focus on thepeasant family, while the producer coopera-tive farm organization will be viewed as thespecific exponent of the global society.

In Romania, at present, the agriculturalproducer cooperatives account for 91 per centof peasant agricultural land. According to theRomanian statistical yearbook, these coopscomprise about 3,500,000 families, whichamounts to 94 per cent of all peasantfamilies. All existing 4,500 producer coop-erative farms are run on the basis of identical

by-laws. Therefore, the social patterns'In Romania, the agricultural producer cooperatives

were constituted by the combining of several small orvery small peasant family farms. The collectivizationprocess started in 1949 in a handful of villages and wascompleted throughout the country by 1962. Some 4,500producer cooperative farms are currently operating.Each comprises, on the average, about 760 families andabout 2,000 ha. (that is, 5,000 acres). The small farmerstransferred their land and production means to jointownership. Therefore, the main features of this type ofcooperative farm society are: (a) common ownership ofland and of the main means of production; (b) collectiveorganization of agricultural workers; (c) proportional

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 927November 1975


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established within this type of large-scaleorganization are more or less similarthroughout the country. Since the imple-mentation of the cooperative farms wasessentially a politically-induced rural socialchange, it can be inferred that the place

assignedto the

family bythe

cooperativefarm

organization mirrors the attitude of theglobal social system toward the peasantfamily's possible roles. Conversely, thepossible impact of the peasant family uponthe cooperative farm organization, if proven,should be considered a relevant theoreticalissue.

The conceptualization of the relationshipbetween the formal organization and theprimary group has not yet been tackledsatisfactorily by modern sociology, possiblybecause of some one-sided

perspectivesand

the small number of empirical investigations.Litwak and Meyer (1967) were probably rightin pointing out that "sociologists have beengenerally more concerned with the incompati-bilities between bureaucratic organizationsand primary groups than with their comple-mentarity." An example of this is MaxWeber's argument, endlessly resumed, thatthe processes of industrialization and urbani-zation are slowed down wherever theextended family system displays a markedcohesiveness. This one-sided outlook shouldbe reversed and completed by studying thecomplementarity between formal organiza-tion and primary group.

When I say one-sided, I am also referringto the research perspectives which havecovered only a relatively limited range ofsocial situations. Some sociologists havestudied, for instance, the relationshipbetween the school as a modern organizationand the family as a primary group; but in thiscase, the family is situated outside the

distribution of proceeds according to the amount of workperformed by each member. In addition, each family wasattributed by the initial statutes a small plot of land (lessthan one acre) for the usufruct of the family household.Thus, the scattered small, private peasant family farmswere replaced by a large-scale formal organization. Theimplementation of this type of formal organization,through a planned change, sponsored politically andeconomically by the government, was meant precisely tosupply a new structure and organization for the humanand natural resources of the traditional village. Thesocial organization of the village was thus brought to beconsistent with the new socioeconomic and politicalstructures of the global society.

(school) organization. Quite a number ofstudies concentrate on the relationshipbetween the industrial enterprise and theinformal primary groups within it, but hereanother difference appears: the primarygroup under study is not the family but

merelya

groupof friends within a certain

plant or enterprise.In exploring the relationship between the

peasant family and the cooperative farm, wealso have the advantage of introducing adistinct type of social situation, which hasbeen seldom examined so far. This type ofsituation-agricultural-has a relatively lowrate of incidence in Western societies butquite a high one in socialist societies. It thusprovides a new and fertile field for theinvestigation of those interactions, congru-encies, or

incongruenciesthat exist between

the formal organization and the family-aprimary group within the former. Thisfacilitates the task of identifying the variety ofexisting connections, including feedback,between formal organizations and primarygroups such as the family.

In order to succeed in interrelating ourbasic concepts-the primary group and theformal organization-we must first definetheir characteristic dimensions. According toWeber's theory, developed by Blau, Mills,Crozier, Katz, Kahn and others, the modernformal organization is characterized by theexistence of a pyramidal, formal hierarchy ofauthority, the use of formal rules in guidingorganizational behavior, the recourse toexperts in key positions, the appointment andpromotion of personnel on a merit basis toensure the competence needed for achievingthe tasks of the organization, impersonalsocial relations based on role requirements, aformal definition of the members' rights andobligations, and the separation of strategicdecisions from current administrative deci-sions. The producer cooperative farmpossesses essentially all these characteristicsof formal organizations (Cernea, 1973 and1974).

As far as the structure of the primary groupis concerned, it is characterized, as pointedout by Cooley, by dimensions diametricallyopposed to those mentioned above, namely:face-to-face contact among its members;personal relationships of a comprehensive,noninstrumental nature; with goals stemmingfrom the multifaceted, diffuse interests of its

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY November 197528


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members; an unlimited range of tasks; andthe admission of members on the basis ofsuch criteria as birth or affection with ageneral disregard for competence. The familyis one of the most typical examples of aprimary group, and the peasant family we arereferring to has all these characteristics.

One of the main characteristics of thesocialist cooperative farm organization is itstwofold link with its members as: (1)individuals and (2) members of familygroups. The identification and definition ofthese internal structural links is of para-mount importance for understanding theorganization, the problems related to itsoperation, and the organizational behavior ofits members. On the other hand, the peasantfamily finds itself in a dual situation: it existsitself within the cooperative as a collectivemember and at the same time outside theformal cooperative organization as a semi-autonomous economic unit, the familyhousehold.

Our field researches led to the conclusionthat the peasant family has a very strongtwofold impact upon the functioning of theorganization: on the one hand, through itsactivity outside the cooperative farm organi-zation and on the other hand through theactivity carried on as a family unit within theorganization. Although both aspects areclosely interrelated and must be examinedtogether in order to convey the real measureof the family's impact upon the organization,within the scope of this paper only thefamily's impact from within the organizationwill be examined.

1. WORK GROUPS WITHIN THEORGANIZATION

By its very creation, the cooperative farmorganization did away with familism whichwas, as Sorokin put it, the fundamentaltraditional pattern of carrying on agriculturalactivities. The peasant family was actually awork team which ran the family farm as asmall production/consumption unit. How-ever, following the creation of the large-scaleagricultural organization, the "classic"work-ing group ceased to be the peasant familygroup; within the cooperative it was replacedfrom the outset by the brigade (brigada) orteam (echipa). A brigade comprised up to120-150 people; a team up to 25-30. Themembers of each brigada or echipa were

selected according to functional criteria andno longer according to family ties. Althoughall members of a particular peasant familymight have incidentally found themselveswithin the same echipa, it was not any morethe family group or the kinship system whichwas used as a matrix for the work unit.

Thus,members of the same family were oftenscattered in different echipa and their mutualfamily ties did not display any longer ameaningful impact on their work behaviorand performance.

The substitution of the traditional familygroup by this organizational structure wasalso strengthened by the pay system based onthe "day work" (zi munca), that is, on themeasurement of the amount of work donedaily by each individual, and not by family

groups.In this

waythe formal

organizationof

the cooperative farm deliberately gave upusing the family structure as a workorganization matrix. The family groupstructure which offered a micro-team patternfor agricultural work was fragmented andcontested as an outmoded structure not fittedto the new conditions.

These forms of work organization (bri-gada, echipa) and pay (day-work) have beenused in the cooperative farms for about 20years, from 1949 to 1970. They undoubtedlyrepresented a more modern

operationalprinciple when compared to the traditionalforms existing before cooperativization. Yet,as time went by, they revealed quite a numberof organizational shortcomings and a reducedcapacity as economic inducement for thecooperative farm members (Ceausescu,1971). It is not the purpose of this study todeal in detail with the dysfunctional effects ofthis system. Instead, we shall examine atlength the "contract payment system" (acordglobal) first introduced on an experimentalbasis and generalized after it became evidentthat economically the old system not onlyfailed as an incentive for the cooperative farmmembers but also drove them away from theformal organization.

The new "contract payment system"radically improved the functioning of thecooperatives and the organization of workingunits and its introduction soon led tospectacular results on a macrosocial scale.

2We will further refer to the new contract paymentsystem as the "C.P. system."

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILYovember 1975 929


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Between 1970 and 1972, the new C.P. systemwas adopted by the overwhelming majority ofproducer cooperative farms: 3,237 in 1971(about 70 per cent of the 4,600 existing onesat that time) and 4,367 in 1972 (or 96 percent). The new system was at first graduallyintroduced and

finallytook over all basic sec-

tors of almost each single cooperative farm.3Economists have shown that a sizeable part ofthe raise in agricultural output for 1970-1973was due to the new forms of organization andrenumeration introduced under the C.P. sys-tem (Sandu, 1973) and they emphasize thatthis new pay system has mobilized importantlabor resources and led to increased yieldswithout supplementary financial investments.What are the changes brought about by thisnew system in the relationships between theorganization and the family?

The essentially new element introducedunder the team work system is a laborcontract between the cooperative farmorganization and its members. Under thiscontract, each year the cooperative assigns apart of its land (livestock as well) forcultivation. A lump payment is alwaysallocated for performing all the tasks on theassigned land. Those to whom the land isassigned assume the obligation of guaran-teeing a certain output for which remunera-tion is established in advance and whichincreases progressively with the quantityexceeding the limit set under the contract.Machinery, selected seed, and other facilitiesare guaranteed by the cooperative. Thecooperative farm members who are party tothe contract carry on the manual laborneeded in crop growing, weeding, orharvesting. The more efficient and completethe manual labor, the better the results.

The written, contractual form of thismutual understanding institutionalizes morefirmly the relationship between the coopera-tive farm organization and its members, afact which contributes to a closer internalcohesion of the organization. The contractlays down mutual obligations in the sensethat the organization is bound to supply allmechanical work in due time, seeds andchemical fertilizers in specified quantities,

3In 1972, 75 per cent of the producer cooperativefarms operated under the C.P. system in all the basicsectors of their activity: 16 per cent in the vegetal sector,and only 5 per cent in animal husbandry. The share ofeach sector went up noticeably in 1973.

and to pay in cash or in cash and kind. Thecooperative members are under the obliga-tion to carry out the necessary manual laborso as to obtain a specified level of agriculturaloutput.

The institution of such an agreement,

representing a concrete legal formalization,brings up new types of social and organiza-tional problems in the life of the cooperative.The first major problem is: with whom shouldthe cooperative farm organization concludethese contracts? In other words, how shouldthe groups of cooperative members likely toassume these contractual obligations beconstituted?

The structure under which an organiza-tion's activity (administrative, military, andso on) is carried out molds certain types of

groups and creates normative patterns fortheir constitution. The work teams can bemade up in several ways. In the case of theproducer cooperative farm, the transitionfrom the old pay system to the new one madepossible a change from the old classic types ofgroups-the brigade, the team-to new typesof groups.

2. THE INTEGRATION OF THEFAMILY SYSTEM WITHIN THESTRUCTURE OF THE FORMAL

ORGANIZATIONAfter initial experiments were carried out

in some producer cooperative farms, thecentral authorities in charge of agriculturedecided that such agreements can beconcluded between the cooperative and:

(1) teams made up of 25-30 coop members;(2) families;(3) groups of families willing to carry out

joint work;(4) individuals (members of the coopera-

tive).Depending on the preference of the

cooperative farm members and on the natureof the work to be performed, any one of theseunits could be constituted as a work unit.Their very formation is of outstandingimportance as they bring about a deeprestructuring of interpersonal relations andmembership groupings within the cooperativefarm organization.

Since the new rules made possible such awide range of options, it is of obvioussociological interest to investigate the nature

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY30 November 1975


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of preferred arrangements by the organiza-tion members. In order to identify thesepreferences we resort to data from acomprehensive survey conducted in 1972 on asample of 316 producer cooperative farmsselected from all counties. The survey was

carried out under the sponsorship of theMinistry of Agriculture, Food Industry, andWater. Table 1 presents comparative data for1971 and 1972.

Within the theoretical framework of thepresent article, the figures clearly indicate adifferential acceptance by the members ofthe proiducer cooperative farms of the newwork formations. Although the new systemwas fairly quickly accepted by the majority ofthe cooperative farm members, who found itadvantageous, their preferences regardingthe type of working group are unequallydistributed.

The main significance of the changes fromthe organization's point of view could bedescribed as follows : the producer coopera-tive farm as a large-scale formal organizationhas found a way of using the existing familyrelations among the cooperative members asa functional equivalent to the previousorganizational structures likely to lead tobetter performance. In their turn thecooperative farm families were given the

opportunity (which they did not have for 20years) to assert themselves as a primary groupwith productive capability within the organi-zation, and to use their microgroup cohesionfor the benefit of both the family and theorganization.

The following conclusions can be drawnfrom the figures presented in Table 1.

First, the pattern of nonfamily team(echipa) is still maintained to a certainextent. The team represents a functionalcollection of people consisting of members of

various family groups.4 This type of workingunit within the formal organization existed inthe previous period as well and it is generallycharacteristic of a modern organizationdedicated to productive goals.

Secondly, we notice a revival of the familyas a social matrix of productive activity butnot within the modern organization. Thisseems to be the most significant findingresulting from this survey.

4The presence of members of the same nuclear familyin the same team is possible but is only sporadic and inno

waydefines this

typeof work team.

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In all the coops under study, there has beena noticeable revitalization of the familysystem as a working unit, either as anautonomous family or as a group of familieswhich takes upon itself the collective functionof a production subsystem. The type called

"group of families" is usually made up ofkin-related nuclear families, but sometimesof neighboring families (the relative frequencyof these two possible patterns could not beascertained in the survey).

Thirdly, it seems that the initial tendencyof the peasants as well as of the formalorganization to resort to the family structurehas become much stronger during the secondyear of the C.P. system (1972). The rates ofgrowth in one year of the work units based onfamily ties (the single family and the group offamilies) were the highest: 89.1 per cent and86.6 per cent respectively, compared to only28.2 per cent for the echipa (see column 12).The total number of cooperative farmmembers working in these two types of familyunits in 1972 exceeded by far the number ofthose clustered in nonfamily teams (seecolumn 8). Furthermore, out of the totalnumber of cooperative farm members whofirst worked under the C.P. system in 1972,39.5 per cent chose the family forms whileonly 12.4 per cent entered nonfamily teams.

Last, but not least, a great number ofcooperative farmers (around 50 per cent) tendto establish an official contractual relation-ship with the cooperative farm organizationas individuals. At first glance, this lastfinding might appear to diminish theimportance of the previous ones about familyrevitalization. Four in-depth case studies,conducted in order to find out the motivationbehind the preference for individual contrac-tual relationships with the organization (as

opposedto the

family typecontract) and in

order to assess the family situation of thosefavoring individual agreements with thecooperative, shed more light on the dynamicsinvolved. These studies were conducted in1973 in the producer cooperative farms ofManasia and of Girbovi (Ilfov County), ofCobadin (Constanta County) and in a groupof coops from Brasov County. They wereintended to identify the signatories of theindividual agreement and their motivations;their family and professional status; and toinvestigate whether the actual work was

performed by just these individuals orwhether they were assisted by others.

The in-depth case studies helped uncoverdynamics that the national survey could notreveal. The main finding was that, in mostinstances, behind the formal contractual

relationship established by a single individualwith the organization lies this person's familyas the real working agent. The following threetypes of situations were identified behind theaparently uniform legal relationship betweenthe cooperative and the individual, namely:

(a) relations between the coop and onesingle cooperative farm member;

(b) behind the member who formally signsan individual contract is actuallyhis family who is the actual workingunit;

(c)two members of the same

family (hus-band-wife, mother-daughter, etc.) signtwo separate individual contracts withthe cooperative for different plots ofland, yet actually they do not workseparately but as a single family groupsuccessively on both plots. Here, too,the de facto situation contradicts thede jure one: in reality, the actual re-lationship of the cooperative is with thefamily as a work unit.

Very interesting results were obtained bythe case

studyconducted at the

producercooperative farm of Cobadin.5 When theindividual-cooperative farm contractual rela-tionships were submitted to scrutiny, it wasfound that the signatory of the contract formaize growing does not work alone but ishelped by one or two members of his family.In 50 per cent of the cases the signatory is noteven the one who puts in the largest amountof labor. Typical cases were identified inwhich the signatory of the individual contractis currently assigned a quite different jobwithin the producer cooperative farm ofCobadin (such as warehouse keeper, teamsteror member of the vegetable growing team).He (or she) has, in addition, concluded anindividual work contract for which he (or she)works during leisure time and in which he (orshe) is usually helped by the family onSundays. (For instance, one who is a memberin a team of 25 working in the vegetablesection of the coop receives no help from hisfamily in his work on the coop team. But in

5This study was done with the assistance of GeorgetaBilici.



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working the plot of land assigned under theC.P. system, he is helped by severalmembers of the family on a rotation basis.)

Another finding of the case study ofthree cooperative organizations in BrasovCounty is that in certain cases the cooperative

organizationsconclude agreements with

noncoop members, that is, workers oremployees who are not members of theproducer cooperative farm but happen to livein the same village. What is significant is thefact that these noncoop workers also resortto a family pattern in order to carry out thework on the assigned plot of land during theirleisure time.

In light of these findings, the situationsdiscussed under "b" and "c," which arerecorded in the official statistics of the coopsas an individually-performed activity, are infact a concerted effort of family groups.Many individuals cannot otherwise bemobilized to work directly by the cooperativefarm. Obviously, given the contractionbetween the de jure situation statisticallyrecorded and the de facto situation, noaggregate estimates are available regardingthe prevalence of this phenomenon through-out the country. However, it has beenidentified in all the coops studied in depth.

Another interesting finding from thein-depth case studies stems from thepossibility of checking the number ofsignatories of family contracts or of contractsof groups of families against the actualnumber of persons who work in the fields. Ascan be seen in Table 1 (columns 5 and 10),the average number of cooperative membersnominally listed for each family contract is1.5. It seems that in almost 50 per cent of thecases the written agreement concluded onbehalf of the family is signed by a singlemember who "officially" represents theothers in the formal relationship with thecooperative. In fact, however, the actualaverage number of persons working on thebasis of family contracts was found in in-depth case studies to be much higher thanthat indicated in the national survey. Thesame holds true with respect to the groups offamilies: the average number of persons was5.3 and 5.6 respectively for the two yearsexamined, but in the case studies it was foundto vary between 7 and 10 persons. Thesegroups are multifamily units, made upvoluntarily of three to five families (some-

times even seven to eight) who are either kinrelated or neighboring/friend families.

3. SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS OF FAMILYGROUPS WITHIN THE

FORMAL ORGANIZATION

We shallelaborate on the above-mentionedfindings since, undoubtedly, they have a

macrosocietal significance. Because of themass rural-urban migration which occurredin recent years, many coops have experienceda great shortage of manpower and constantlyneed more intense effort from their membersin order for the needed work to be performed.As a result of the new C.P. system, thecooperative farm organization receives valua-ble help from the family system in mobilizingpotential labor resources.

Asignificant

evolution anddeparture

frominitial patterns is to be noted. The formalcoop organization did not have from theoutset such a flexible policy towards thefamily institution. When the producer coop-erative farms were first created, their officialrules did not take into account the possibilityof using the organizational capability of thefamily primary group. On the contrary, somespontaneous, local attempts to use the familyas a work matrix were discouraged for ideo-logical or technical reasons. During 1959-1961, for instance, some

cooperativefarms

spontaneously resorted to assigning plots ofland to family groups, who were held whollyresponsible for working them. This trend wasblocked, however, by a decision adopted atthe National Conference of collectivistpeasants of December, 1961, followingcriticism against this formula. The official"recommendations" adopted by the confer-ence specified:

. . .the need has arisen to give up the distribu-tion of the land to families-a method used insome collective farms-because it leads to a scat-tering of the fields, to inadequate use of agrotech-nical rules, to delays in the execution of agricul-tural labors and prevents the supplementary re-muneration in accordance with the yields obtained.(Consfatuirea pe tara a taranilor collectivisti,1962)The contract between the coop and the

family stimulates the family members to carryout a certain amount of work in due time onthe cooperative's land assigned undercontract. Since as a rule additional laborinvestments bring about increases in outputand income, the signatory of the contract

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 933November 1975


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becomes interested in mobilizing the othermembers of his family (the contract does notstipulate this, but does not formally prevent iteither). As a matter of fact, the coop memberknows from the outset (when he signs up forthe contract) that he will have to rely on othermembers of his

family. Theyoften cannot

work full days since they may be employed bystate enterprises or they may be attendingschool. However, they can work part-timeand only occasionally full days. A nowcommon sight in the village are the noncoopemployees hurrying to the fields after theyhave completed their working day, in order tohelp a family member in his work for thecoop. The clustering of these fragmentarylabor resources makes up a sizeable laborforce and, under certain conditions, plays adecisive role in the completion of agriculturalwork.

Because of its complex and bureaucraticnature the cooperative farm organizationcannot directly mobilize these fragmentaryresources which are not available on a regularbasis. The family is the only "organization"capable of doing this for the cooperativefarm. The organization is unable to measuresuch irregular contributions in order toreward them, whereas the family is not evenconcerned with this problem. In this sense,the family system fulfills a function necessaryto the formal bureaucratic organizationwhich the latter cannot accomplish by itself.Thus, the family system has a considerableimpact upon the functioning of the formalorganization and upon the agricultural sectorof the national economy.

We can conclude that this impact is rootedin some of the specific characteristics of thefamily primary group which are not typical ofthe bureaucratic organization which enablethe family to achieve what the formalorganization cannot. These characteristicsare: the specific solidarity of the family; thecommon interests and goals of the primarygroup; parental authority; affective relationsamong family members which prove to be anefficient factor in unitary action; the elasticityof the primary group and its capacity foradjustment to nonstandardized tasks (Lit-wak, 1968); and the ability of the familysystem to accommodate its role-set andexisting patterns to new demands of outsideagencies (Hill, 1972). These characteristics ofthe family have had a substantial bearing

upon work performance within the coop andeventually they resulted in changing theorganization itself: the organization haswidened the range of behavior acceptedwithin its hierarchy, in order to reassign anofficial status to family ties as work matrix.

Thus, intrafamilyconnections

operateas a

micronetwork that collects and directs frag-mentary and variable labor resources whichwould otherwise be wasted. The convergenceof the family and the organization appears tobe at the present stage beneficial to both. Ona nationwide scale this has led to a markedincrease in work attendance and to higheryields in recent years as compared with thepast.

The complementarity of the primary groupand of the bureaucratic organization thusachieved

heightensthe latter's

efficiencyin

implementing its ultimate functions. Thisno longer represents an isolated phenomenonconfined to a few scattered coops, but is afeature common to all producer cooperativefarms throughout the country, a tendencythat points to the impact of the family uponother social institutions.

One might ask whether this rise inefficiency is obtained at the expense ofslackened rules in the formal organization,caused by its acceptance of the principle offamilism. The answer to this

questiondepends on the type of assessment criterion.If the strength of the cooperative farm organi-zation is defined in terms of its degree of goalattainment (goals which are assigned to thecoop both by its members and by the globalsocial system), the answer will be negative.The record of recent results obtained fromthe widespread acceptance of the C.P. systemindicates a nationwide rise in output and,more significantly, the increased work atten-dance of coop members. This amounts to acloser identification of the individuals withthe formal organization, a stronger socialcohesion within the cooperative and anincreased normative convergence of theorganization and the family primary group.

The result of this process is a tellingexample of the way in which some propertiesof the informal social organization are' usedby the formal bureaucratic organization. Ifwe define as informal the interaction patternswhich evolve in response to those formallyprescribed, it becomes clear that in the newsystem the cooperative farm organization



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successfully relates these interaction patternswith its goals. The difference lies in the factthat the primary social group to which thispaper refers (the family) did not come intoexistence within the organization (as is truewith primary groups in industrial enter-

prises).Instead, it

precedesthe formal

organization and it operates outside it; yet theproblem confronting the formal organizationis similar.

By relying for certain tasks on the familyprimary group, the cooperative farm assignspart of the global functions of the organiza-tion to this group, formalizing this primarygroup as a work matrix within theorganization and as one of its subsystems.

Undoubtedly, the acceptance of the familywork matrix introduces a certain flexibilitywithin the "pure," classic, modern, "bureau-cratic" organization, but it does not alter thenature of the organization. Of course, thisprocess is limited to only certain levels of theorganizational bureaucratic hierarchy. Thefamily action pattern is incorporated at justone of the levels of organizational hierarchy,namely, at the level of execution ofproduction tasks. In other words, it is incor-porated in the productive-technical sub-system of the cooperative, but not in all of itssubsystems. Thus, we do not find an invasionof the family structure at all the hierarchicallevels of the organization. To be moreprecise, the family decision-making pattern isnot absorbed within the management sub-system of the cooperative organization. Themain characteristics of the cooperative as aformal bureaucratic organization remainunaltered: the cooperative is an impersonalorganization built on the principles ofspecialization and separation of functions inmanagement, administration, production;the authority structure of the formal organi-zation remains intact and so does its decision-making system. Thus, if on the one hand,family patterns would spread to all the levelsof the formal organization, the very nature ofthe organization would change. On the otherhand, the obliteration of the family patternwould remove a social structure with abuilt-in mobilization potential. Therefore, wecan conclude that within certain limits thecoordination of the family system with thebureaucratic cooperative provides a methodof maximizing the efficiency of the moderncooperative organization.

It would be wrong to conclude that, giventhe stronger position of the organization in itsrelationship with the family, the latter has nodirect means of imposing penalties on theorganization in case it falls short of fulfillingits obligations to its member families. Somebasic means of control upon the organizationlie with the families: namely, its members'participation or non-participation in theactivities of the cooperative. The family holdsa sort of command post over the laborresources of its members; the very function-ing of the organization is influenced and"controlled" by the family's decisions aboutthe utilization of its labor resources. 6

In light of this, we may say that theproductive economic function of the peasantfamily was not wholly obliterated through thecreation of the large cooperative farms. Themacrosocietal changes achieved in Romaniawrought a profound transformation in thefunctions and structures of the peasantfamily, as we have shown in another study(Cernea, 1971). However, it would be wrongto assume that the peasant family hascompletely ceased to act as a productive unit(remaining only a consumer unit) and fails toexert a constant feedback upon the formalcooperative farm organization. On thecontrary, it still plays a very important role inthe production process within the large-scaleorganization.

Under new institutional circumstances andconstraints, the family maintains its vitalityas a work unit and provides a primary grouptype of matrix which proves to be functionalfor the organization, for its individualmembers, and for the global society as well.There are definite types of activities, likemobilization of fragmentary resources, ac-complishment of nonstandardized tasks, andprovision of motivation, for the fulfillment ofwhich the primary group is better suited thanthe bureaucratic large-scale organization.tnder certain circumstances, like thosedescribed in the present paper, the accomp-lishment of such activities becomes criticalfor the organization or even for the society as

6Through occasional infringement on their specificagreements with the member families, the cooperativefarms display a kind of organizational pathology, quitecommon to various kinds of bureaucratic organizations.By doing so, they elicit a negative climate within theorganization which in turn affects the behavior of thesefamilies in the future cycle of production.

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 935ovember 1975


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a whole. Thus, the family acts as anindependent variable and the formal organi-zation becomes dependent or partiallydependent on the family, at least until it findsan appropriate substitute.

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