The Practical Logic Of Enterprise Informal Organizations From The Perspective Of The Field Theory

Enterprises are the micro foundation of the market economy operation and the most basic subject in market economy activities.Their operations are influenced by external factors like the social environment,policies,etc.and internal factors of their own development.Enterprise informal organizations as parts of the enterprise have a crucial impact on the stability and development of the enterprise.This research from the perspective of economic sociology,based on Bourdieu's field theory,and with his practice theory as the framework,explored the formation,operation and influence logic of enterprise informal organization fields,so as to provide a better understanding of enterprise informal organizations and promote the healthy development of enterprise informal organization fields and the good maintenance of the relationship between the formal organization and the informal organization of the enterprise.This research referring Granovetter's "strong ties" and "weak ties" concepts in the social network theory and combining with the field theory of Bourdieu,emphasized the sociology meaning of "strong fields" and "weak fields" and put forward the concept--"field gravitation" which was different from "field attraction" to research the relationship among actors in fields and the relationship among fields.This research used the case study method and the participant observation method.Through the practical research of American H branch store of X enterprise,it first of all analyzed the formation logic of enterprise informal organization fields,and found it as follows: firstly,the most basic informal organization fields were formed under the influence of the objective structure of the formal organization;secondly,through the attraction among fields,the fine-tuning of members in informal organization fields completed and the dynamic balance of fields achieved;thirdly,the media(people,opportunities,events,etc.)connected informal organizations and formal organizations,then informal organization fields with strong or weak gravitation formed.In summary,this research found that from the viewpoint of element sources,informal organization fields could be formed by members of a formal organization(such as the informal organization A/B inIV this paper),and also could be the mixture of formal organization members and informal organization members,which meant formal organization members and informal organization members could form a new informal organization field(such as the informal organization C in this paper).In the aspect of the field gravitation strength,informal organizations,generally speaking,were relatively strong fields compared with formal organizations,while formal organizations were weak fields.However,there was an informal organization where the connection in the internal relationship network was not so close,and even its field gravitation was not as strong as the formal organizations'.Therefore,this kind of field was relatively a weak field,but a strong field could exist in a weak field,which meant the formation of the informal organization field reinforced the cohesion and gravitation of the part whose inner was originally a weak field so as to make it a relatively strong field,thus a strong field formed in a weak field.Consequently,the strength of the field gravitation was not absolute.Instead,it changed dynamically with actual situations.It was a relative concept.In the next place,this research studied the operation logic of enterprise informal organizations.This section included two parts: "the internal operation logic of enterprise informal organization fields" and "the interaction and relationship among enterprise informal organization fields".The former,according to Bourdieu's analysis steps of the field,researched problems such as the intermediary effect of enterprise informal organization fields and its influence on actors,the power position relationship in fields and the field structure,and the influence of habitus on fields' internal operation.It showed that enterprise informal organization fields,through playing an intermediary role,connected subjective fields and objective fields,joined actors' practice and social environment,and influenced the thinking and the behavior of actors;it reflected that actors' power position in the field influenced the structure of the field,and the capital(such as social capital,symbolic capital,etc.)that actors in enterprise informal organization fields possessed had an important influence on actors' practice in the field and would have a certain impact on the field structure;it proved Bourdieu's opinion that "habitus and fields were interrelated and inseparable",and introduced Bourdieu's "sense of practice" concept at the same time to further explain the way that the habitus of members in enterprise informal organization fields played a role in the field.The latter analyzed habitus' and formal organizations' influence on interaction among informal organization fields: habitus connected the field and the capital so as to make changes in the informal organization field structure;formal organizations promoted the connection among informal organization fields through the dual identity of actors.Then,this research discussed the influence logic of enterprise informalorganizations.It found the emergence of organizational citizenship behavior whose main performance was tacit knowledge transfer in enterprise informal organizations,thus promoting the enterprise efficiency.Meanwhile,because of different interests that fields represented,there was a game between informal organizations and formal organizations.In addition,the positive impact of the conflict or heterogeneous actors in enterprise informal organization fields on fields under certain conditions and the communication in a field were significant factors to promote the rational action of actors in fields.The supervision function of enterprise informal organizations reflected in or among informal organizations and between informal organizations and formal organizations was helpful to reduce enterprises' X-inefficiency and promoted the stability and healthy development of fields.The main part of this research discussed these issues about "what the basis of practice of enterprise informal organizations was(the formation logic),how enterprise informal organizations operated to practice(the operation logic),what the practice meaning of enterprise informal organizations was(the influence logic)",etc.,and formed the practical logic framework and practical system of enterprise informal organization fields.Finally,this research summarized the existing researches and deemed that the practice of enterprise informal organization fields was deeply influenced by history and objective reality.It was closely related to employees and the formal organization field and would have significant influence on them.Enterprise informal organization fields not only provided the basis for the activities of the members,but also provided the condition for the development of themselves and the formal organization field.Moreover,this research discussed the particularity and popularization of this case study,and put forward the direction for further research on enterprise informal organization fields.