Bio: (1922-2013) French sociologist. Michel Crozier didn’t have an academic carrier, but he conducted many empirical field studies and founded the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CSO), a research laboratory in Paris. He studied the sociology of organizations and bureaucracy.  His most important book is The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (1964). This book established the sociology of organizations as a distinct subdiscipline in France. Crozier believes that the impersonal centralized bureaucratic system corresponds to French culture. Fear of face-to-face relations, desire for equality, and aversion to hierarchy are patterns that maintain the rigidity of bureaucracy.

Crozier studied power relations in monopoly factories in France and concluded that the workers in charge of machine maintenance have the greatest power among workers because machine failure is the only factor of production that cannot be controlled. These workers are frantically storing the knowledge and techniques needed to repair machines. In their relations with foremen, as well as towards machine workers, repairmen behave arrogantly. Relations with foremen are hostile, while they maintain seemingly good relations with ordinary workers, but they feel subdued hostility. French society is blocked because the state restricts innovation, and rejects decentralization and the introduction of competition in some areas.

In the analysis of the relationship between the actors and the system, Crozier proposes three starting postulates. The first is that people are not always rational, they often do not have precise goals, as well as detailed plans. People accept what gives them a sufficient level of satisfaction. The second postulate is that the actor always has a certain freedom in relation to the organization. An actor can influence other people if he controls some source of system insecurity. The third postulate is that rational strategies for achieving goals can be applied only when there is a relatively stable mechanism of "play", and the actor has the power within that system of action.

Main works

Usines et syndicats d'Amérique (1951);

Petits fonctionnaires au travail (1956);

Le Phénomène bureaucratique (1963);

Le Monde des employés de bureau (1965);

La Société bloquée (1970);

The Crisis of Democracy (1975);

L'Acteur et le Système (1977);

On ne change pas la société par décret (1979);

Le Mal américain (1980);

Strategies for Change (1982);

The Trouble with America: Why the Social System Is Breaking Down (1984);

État moderne, État modeste: Stratégies pour un autre changement (1986);

L'Entreprise à l'écoute (1989);

La Crise de l'intelligence (1995);

À quoi sert la sociologie des organisations ? (2000).

Works Translated into English:

The World of the Office-Worker (1965, in French 1956);

The Stalled Society (1973, in French 1970);

Actors and Systems: The Politics of Collective Action (1980, in French 1977);

The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (2017, in French 1963).