Social Integration, Bureaucratization, and the Professions

IT IS generally agreed that the central problem of modern society is the integration of differentiated activities into some kind of meaningful and coordinated whole. Among these differentiated activities are occupations, or occupational roles. It is the emergence of occupational roles which more than anything else distinguishes modern society from the folk type; and the integration of modern society is tied directly to its occupational and economic systems. An occupational role is a pattern of activity organized primarily around the functional, or instrumental, contribution a person makes to society.' It is focussed on what a person does rather than who he is in terms of some relational tie such as kinship.2 Using the concepts of differentiation and integration as a basis of classification we can distinguish three general types of occupational roles: (1) those which involve high degrees of specialization and proficiency within a relatively narrow range of knowledge or skill; (2) those which involve responsibility for integrating or coordinating the differentiated activities of others; and (3) a residual group of occupations which involve neither a high degree of knowledge or skill nor responsibility for coordinating the activities of others. Following Parsons we shall designate these as "professional" roles, "executive" roles, and "labor" roles, respectively. As defined, these roles are "ideal" or "pure" types. Actual occupations usually combine elements of more than one type. Nevertheless there are some nearly pure types even of labor roles, such as the ditch-digger who is guided by lines drawn on the ground to show him where to dig and who has someone to tell him when to stop digging. The term "hand," whether applied to workers on farms, on ships, or in factories, connotes that it is not intellect but mainly physical strength that is hired. Numerous professional occupations approximate the pure, type of professional role, particularly specialists in such fields as medicine, law, and science. The presidents of business corporations may be former engineers, financiers, lawyers, or salesmen; hence they do not hold their position by virtue of any one of these specialized competencies but because of their executive ability. As administrators their job is to coordinate the "parts" of their organization so that it will endure as a going concern, which in the case of business enterprises means among other things making a profit. The chief executive of a hospital or university, who is usually also a physician or an academician, as the case may be, exemplifies an occupational role which combines the two elements of specialized competence and executive responsibility, although increasingly the tendency has been to place men whose experience has been principally in the executive role in these positions. Midway between the pure types of professional role and labor role is that of the skilled craftsman or artisan, who has a highly specialized skill without the high degree of abstract knowledge and generalized competence of the "learned" professions. On the dimension of executive responsibility there is a wide range of positions from the "straw" (or working) boss to the top executive of an organization, as well as numerous combinations of administrative responsibility with specialized technical knowledge. The executive role is never found apart from a "formal" or "bureaucratic" organization which needs administrative direction. By "bureaucratic organization" we mean a pyramidal structure of 1 Cf. Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1951), p. 474 et passim. Many of the ideas in this paper derive ultimately from Parsons' lectures and writings although it is difficult to specify precisely where and in what form they first appeared. The writer's debt to Parsons is hereby acknowledged. Expression of appreciation is also due to James H. Barnett for critical reading of the manuscript and several helpful suggestions. 2 Since all roles involve "relational ties" and "functional contributions" of one sort or other, this distinction rests on the relative emphasis of each in the definition of the role. A housewife does a lot of work but hers is not an occupational role, while the cook, nursemaid, and housekeeper functions are clearly recognized as occupational roles.