Maturation and life in organizations

Organization Studies, Mid-Winter, 1994 by M.L. Bowles

Introduction

The root of the issue discussed here is the extent to which contemporary patterns of organization culture and control allow individuals the opportunity to develop their particular abilities and potentials. In other words, the extent to which experience in organizations hinders or enhances the drive for maturation. Much comment has been offered to suggest that such experience is often regressive and operates against individual interests. Presthus (1978), in detailing the features of the 'organization society', describes how the process of bureaucratization has submerged personal responsibility in favour of collective responsibility, which results in a corrosion of individual integrity. Presthus (1978: 1) comments, 'Contemporary organisations have a pervasive influence upon individual and group behaviour, expressed through a web of rewards, sanctions and other inducements that range from potent coercion to the most subtle appeals to group conformity'. Whyte (1956) notes the increasing pattern of 'collectivization' in describing the 'organization man' who commits his/her being to the organization, making it a centre-piece of life in a way quite different to his/her elders. The 'organization man' is a member of the 'mass society' (Giner 1976) when he/she is either isolated and alienated from the social order or else is submissive to its authoritarian, political and social structures. Homans (1978: 177) states that the mass society is 'dependent on that type of social order that creates isolation or submission'. Concern therefore exists to the extent that organizations are often antithetical to human interests such that the individual's inherent drive for maturation is blocked.

This paper aims to briefly review the collectivization of social life and the pressures for organizational conformity. Such pressures are understood as deriving not only from the ethic of bureaucratic organization but also from more recent, alternative, 'organic' forms of management, where issues of culture and commitment are emphasized. Further, the paper attempts to explain the depth psychological processes which underlie the pressures for collectivization which arrest the human maturational process. Attempts to integrate the analysis of capitalism within a psychoanalytic perspective has been provided by the Frankfurt School (Jay 1973). From the perspective of analytical psychology, following the contribution by Jung, Denhardt (1981), Mitroff (1983a,b) and Bowles (1990, 1991) have made attempts to explain social and organizational processes. Depth psychology, as represented in analytical psychology, does not attempt to live up to the ideals of academic (positivistic) psychology in its pursuit of scientific rigour. Such an approach is indeed regarded as antagonistic to the understanding of psyche. Wilber (1981: 277) comments: 'The reason most orthodox western psychology cannot tell you one interesting thing about the meaning of your life is that it has proudly restricted itself to empirical analytical enquiry'. Fromm (1968: 158) comments: 'Only a psychology which utilises the concepts of unconscious forces can penetrate the confusing rationalisations we are confronted with in analysing either an individual or a culture'.

In advancing the argument that experience in organizations can constrain the capacity of an individual to achieve maturation, it is recognized that maturation involves a complex process which needs to be understood as occurring in a wider social and political context within which an individual is bound up. As such, it is not only organizations which encourage or frustrate drives for maturation, but also class, race, gender and family relations. More widely, the role of culture and economy will condition the parameters within which the individual potential for maturation is exercised The ability to exercise control over one's life then needs to be seen as a result of a complex process of both individual and social dynamics. A contemporary feature of this relationship is the attempt of organizations to extend their control over social affairs, compounded by the fact that individuals often attempt to retreat into these organizations to avoid the anxiety of contemporary life. The implications of these simultaneous tendencies are discussed in respect of the unfolding of the maturational process. Maturation is often conceived of as something which occurs up to the point of late adolescence or something dictated by the time marriage and sibling responsibilities occur. From another perspective, maturation can be seen as a lifelong endeavour to follow a unique, individual, course with all its particular trials and challenges. What is termed a 'whole-life perspective' views the maturation process as continuing beyond the immediate family situation and assumes that wider social experience will encourage or retard maturation throughout life. It was Jung (1968), in a paper written in 1930, entitled 'The Stages of Life', who introduced the 'whole-life' perspective. Essential to Jung's view of maturation are early experiences, together with the demands brought by the second half of life, which, when confronted, can lead to the deepening of the personality, a process referred to by Jung as 'individuation'. Jung's work on life cycles spawned a number of efforts to elaborate features of the maturational process (Erikson 1959; Levinson 1978). The analysis here principally draws on Jung's ideas, emphasizing the role of archetypes, which is viewed as essential in understanding both individual and organizational forms of development.