Functionalism as a Base for Midrange Theory in Organizational Behavior/Theory

Understanding anything as complex as a large, formal organization is obviously difficult. It is a task which, subjectively, appears to be progressing unevenly in Organizational Behavior/Theory, the discipline charged with investigating organizations and the groups and persons who make them up. In this paper we consider functionally based analyses as supplements to and perhaps even replacements for the invariant order midrange theories currently in use in Organizational Behavior/ Theory. Specifically, we: (1) define and describe functionalism and comment briefly on its history in other disciplines; (2) indicate why it may be especially suited to serve, if not as “an all-inclusive speculation comprising a master conceptual scheme” (Merton, 1957: 6), at least as a solid basis for midrange theory in Organizational Behavior/Theory; (3) identify some of the pitfalls that threaten the unwary functional analyst and which in no small measure led to the decline of the paradigm in sociology and anthropology; and (4) provide an example of how a functional analysis might proceed in Organizational Behavior/Theory in the form of a crude functional analysis of leadership.