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Essay Instructions: this is an eassay on industrial sociology, but there is also relevance on management concepts, so please refere to any managerial implications of the idea of 'one dimentional man'.

Essay Instructions: Write a 3-page paper Summary. Use the article below to help aid in writing the paper. You must “quote” from the readings in order to substantiate your points. Use APA format. Do Not Use Outside Sources!

EDITORIAL
Distance Education Theory
Michael G. Moore

The recent publication of two books, one by Verduin and Clark (1991) about distance education and the other by Candy (1991) about self-directed learning, both of which include discussion of theoretical work that I wrote in the early 1970s, has led to the suggestion that I might summarize those theoretical ideas in this journal. I was recently invited to give a talk on the concepts of distance education at a conference organized by the State College and University Systems of West Virginia, and found a greater interest than I had expected in ideas about the conceptualization of distance education. Since it is possible this subject might indeed be of some general interest, I will proceed to elaborate on the idea of transactional distance. The subject of learner autonomy, or self-direction, will be given a minor place in what follows; perhaps we can take it up on another occasion.
Over the past twenty years I have enjoyed the interaction with colleagues around the world as we have struggled to conceptualize our new field of study; I hope that what follows will both extend interest in the subject, and also widen the circle of fellow students who will correspond about this fascinating subject.
The Need for Theory
We must not hide the fact that there is a great deal of confusion about terminology in the distance education field. In particular the use of the term "distance learning" is troublesome since it suggests actions of one person, i.e., the learner, that are independent of the actions of teachers. Yet every so-called "distance learning" program is in fact a teaching program as well as a learning program and, therefore, can only correctly be referred to as distance education. The point is not that the concepts of distance education have not been defined and explored, nor that there is unanimity among scholars about their meanings. In this journal there have been several articles that have both contributed to the progress in conceptualization, and identified the areas of disagreement. What is needed is more discussion about and understanding of these efforts to organize our knowledge, as well as more careful and thoughtful use of terms. Understanding how we "organize our knowledge" means to understand our theory. That's what theory is: the summary and synthesis of what is known about a field. It is the reduction of our knowledge to the basic ideas, presented in a way that shows their underlying patterns and relationships. Understanding theory makes it possible for us to speak with a common vocabulary. Understanding it should have the effect of helping practitioners see where their piece of the action fits and interfaces with others and thus should lead to better ways of working with others. The theory also helps us understand what we don't know and, therefore, is the only guide to research. R esearch that is not grounded in theory is wasteful. It might solve an immediate problem, but it doesn't fulfill its promise. Relating it to theory, however, increases its ability to solve other problems in different times and different places. In our theorizing we rise above immediate and local concerns and find out what is general and long lasting. This gives us a broad perspective that enables us to analyze the particular instance more effectively; it helps us make decisions that are guided by fundamental teaching and learning principles rather than by the pressure of a particular crisis or the dazzle of a fresh opportunity.
Transactional Distance
The first attempt in English to define distance education and to articulate a theory appeared in 1972 (Moore 1972) and in 1980 was named as the theory of transactional distance (Moore 1980). Analysis of the literature that was summarized by this theory led to the important postulate that when we talk about distance education we are referring to a distance that is more than simply a geographic separation of learners and teachers. It is a distance of understandings and perceptions, caused in part by the geographic distance, that has to be overcome by teachers, learners and educational organizations if effecti ve, deliberate, planned learning is to occur.
The concept of Transaction was derived from Dewey (Dewey and Bentley, 1949). As explained by Boyd and Apps (1980) it "connotes the interplay among the environment, the individuals and the patterns of behaviors in a situation" (p. 5). The transaction that we call distance education occurs between individuals who are teachers and learners, in an environment that has the special characteristic of separation of one from another, and a consequent set of special teaching and learning behaviors. It is the physical separation that leads to a psychological and communications gap, a space of potential misunderstanding between the inputs of instructor and those of the learner, and this is the transactional distance. Little is known about transactional distance and much research is needed to understand it better. What follows are conjectures that have at least s tood the test of over twenty years' discussion among distance education scholars in several countries, and that might be further elaborated and more formally tested.
It now appears that transactional distance is a continuous rather than a discrete variable, a relative rather than an absolute term. In any educational program there is some transactional distance, even where learners and teachers meet face to face. What is normally referred to as distance education is that subset of educational programs in which the separation of teacher and learner is so significant that it affects their behaviors in major ways, and requires the use of special techniques, and leads to special conceptualization. The relative nature of transactional distance means also that within the subset of educational programs that we call distance education programs there are many different degrees of transactional distance. When we recognize that distance education is education, we can apply much that we know about teaching and learning from c onventional education in both our theory and practice of distance education. In practice, however, we discover that transactional distance in many programs is so great that the teaching we deliver cannot be just like conventional teaching. On the contrary, the transactional distance is such that special organizations and teaching procedures are essential.
These special teaching procedures fall into two clusters, and what determines the extent of distance in a program is a function of these two sets of variables. These are not technological or communications variables, but variables in teaching and in the interaction of teaching and learning. The two sets of variables are labeled dialogue and structure.
Dialogue describes the interaction between the teacher and learner when one gives instruction and the other responds. The extent and nature of this dialogue is determined by the educational philosophy of the individual or group responsible for the design of the course, by the personalities of teacher and learner, by the subject matter of the course, and by environmental factors. The most important of these is the medium of communication. For example, an educational program in which communication between teacher and learner is solely by television permits no dialogue; the student might make a response to a teacher, but no consequent response by the teacher is possible. A program by correspondence is more dialogic, yet not to the same extent as one taught by computer conference because of the pace of interaction. Even in programs that have been describ ed as having no dialogue, such as when the learner is working with print, audio, or video-recorded media there is a form of highly structured learner-instructor dialogue. In such situations the learner's dialogue is with the person who in some distant place and time organized a set of ideas or information for transmission to, and interaction with, an unknown distant reader, viewer, or listener. At the other extreme, the interactive electronic media permit dialogue that is more dynamic than that between expert and learner using a recorded medium, and such programs are therefore less distant.
The second set of variables that determine transactional distance are elements in the course design; they are the ways in which the teaching program is structured so that it can be delivered through the various communications media. Programs are structured in different ways to take into account the need to produce, copy, deliver, and control these mediated messages. Structure expresses the rigidity or flexibility of the program's educational objectives, teaching strategies, and evaluation methods. It describes the extent to which an education program can accommodate or be responsive to each learner's individual needs. A recorded television program for example is highly structured, with virtually every activity of the instructor and every minute of time provided for, and every piece of content predetermined. There is little or no opportunity for devia tion or variation according to the needs of a particular individual. This can be compared with many teleconference courses, which permit a wide range of alternative responses by the instructor to students' questions and written submissions.
Putting together the dimension of dialogue and structure, it can be seen that a typical television program is highly structured and teacher-learner dialogue is nonexistent, so that transactional distance is high. In the correspondence program there is more dialogue and less structure. At the other extreme, the extent of transactional distance is likely to be relatively low in those teleconference programs that have much dialogue and little predetermined structure.
The above discussion should make it clear that the extent of dialogue and the flexibility of structure varies from program to program, rather than from one medium to another. In programs with little transactional distance, the learner receives directions and guidance through both the structure of the course and dialogue with an instructor. In more distant programs, learners have to make their own decisions about study strategies. Even where a course is structured to give directions and guidance, if there is no dialogue, students may decide for themselves whether the instructions will be used and, if so, when, where, in what ways, and to what extent. Thus, there is a relationship between transactional distance and learning style, since the greater the transactional distance, the more autonomy the learner has to exercise. Thus it can be argued that whi le transactional distance is a characteristic of every educational program, and that programs differ in transactional distance according to the extent of dialogue and structure within them, there is also variability in the transactional distance between teachers and learners within each educational program, resulting from the interaction of dialogue, structure, and the characteristics of each learner.
What determines the success of distance teaching is the extent to which the institution and the individual instructor are able to provide the appropriate opportunity for, and quality of, dialogue between teacher and learner, as well as appropriately structured learning materials. Frequently this will mean taking measures to reduce transactional distance by increasing the dialogue through use of teleconference, and developing well structured printed support materials. Unfortunately what is appropriate varies according to content, level of instruction, and learner characteristics, especially the optimum autonomy the learner can exercise. Much time and effort therefore has to be devoted to understanding the needs of learner populations, and individual learners, to analyzing the content to be taught, to determining the exact learning objectives, the type and frequency of learner exercises and activities and evaluation procedures, and the relationship between the learner and instructors. In other words, much care should be given to determine both the structure of the program and the nature of the dialogue that is sufficient and appropriate for each set of particular learners and, ideally, each individual learner. There are no quick or ready-made answers to the question of how much dialogue or structure is needed and desirable for effective learning. Nevertheless, addressing this question is likely to provide a better basis for making decisions about when and how to use media and other resources than any other strategy available at the present time.

Relevance
The impulse for the interpretation of distance education as an industrialised form of teaching and learning, or as the most industrialised form of teaching and learning, came thirty years ago (Peters 1967). Interest in this has never waned but on the contrary increased. In recent years, the discussion on this attitude towards distance education has even been intensified (Peters 1989, Peters 1994, Campion 1993, Farnes 1993, Raggatt 1993, Rumble 1995a, 1995b, 1995c). This discussion is therefore of some importance because the aspect of industrialisation is not found in pedagogical literature with regard to any other form of teaching and learning. The discussion underlines once again the special character of distance education.
Description of the concept
In the 1960s, when distance education was still being disregarded by pedagogic, in spite of the fact that it even then had a seventy-year long history to look back on, and was even terra incognita for research, it was difficult to take a look at this form of teaching and learning, let alone to make it the subject of academic research. However, in the face of the increasing interest it was high time that its pedagogical advantages and deficiencies were recognized and people made aware of its special features. Of course, it could be described using traditional pedagogical categories. But attempts of this nature (Peters 1967) remained unsatisfactory. Where was the gain if the restricted subject-matter, the special role of the media and, under the anthropological conditions, the advanced age and employment of students were considered? Or where was the gain if distance education was characterized by the separation o f students from teachers and fellow-students, indirect communication by means of correspondence and the predominant use of the medium of printed material? It was always seen merely as a special form of traditional study, although it differs from this to a considerable extent.
To grasp what was special and "essential" about distance education, it was necessary to take a look at its structural differences. It was helpful here to examine the reasons for and circumstances of its creation. For example, the question might be asked why distance teaching had developed in the mid-19th century outside the institutions which the state had established for educating and training its citizens. Why was it able to gain in importance in the following decades although it was neither intended, nor desired, let alone planned, by those responsible for the nation's education? If we follow this line of questioning we come across the first indications of the different structural nature of distance education. In fact, we come up against a fundamental difference. In the case of distance education, funds were not to be applied, as is usual with state education, so that people could be educated and trained. Pe ople were supposed to learn so that the institute providing the instruction could make money or, in other words, make a profit. There were commercial reasons for the creation of distance education. Its pioneers were businessmen.
But there was yet another pointer: as businessmen, the first operators of correspondence schools in the age when industrialism began to flourish recognized the extraordinary opportunities available to those who were no longer satisfied with the traditional methods of teaching and learning. Private schools were prepared to use the new methods of industrial goods production in the teaching and learning process.
It is difficult to imagine how the complete change in teaching and learning methods could have been any more radical: beforehand, everything on the teaching side had been in a single hand, now there was division of labour. For example, planning, developing and presenting the subject-matter and correcting assignments was now done by different persons at different times and at different locations. The development of written courses before the start of teaching itself became more and more important, and corresponded to production planning in the industrialised production process, which was carried out by specially qualified experts. Where teachers had previously literally used their physical presence to present the subject-matter, this was now done on a mechanized (and later automated) basis. Beforehand, teaching had been individualised to a great extent by the pers onality of the teacher. Now it was standardized, normalized and formalised. If teaching had previously been at all times a unique "event" in the subjective experience of participants who were in interplay with a learning group, it was now objectivised, or offered to all participants of a defined course in the same way and could be repeated at will. The most important consequence of objectivisation was that teaching became a product which could be altered and optimized, and above all sold. And not just sold locally but, like an industrially manufactured product, anywhere. In fact, people began to advertise the product "teaching" and to open up cross-border markets to improve its sales results.
Because of these structural characteristics, distance teaching in the 19th century and distance education in the 20th differ in decisive points from traditional face-to-face teaching with a group of learners. Its organisers rationalised teaching to a much greater extent than was usual in traditional teaching. To do this they used machines - the printing press - to make use of the benefits of mass-production, as well as transport mechanisms, to distribute instruction, and they also aimed at acquiring as many students (as paying customers) as possible. In fact the number of students was regarded as a guide to success. All the special features make it obvious that distance teaching at this period is to be regarded as a structurally fundamentally different system of teaching and learning. This justifies seeing it, in fact, as the most (intensively) industrialised from of teaching and learning.
The concept of industrialised teaching was confirmed by the work of the distance teaching universities which have been founded since the 1970s, above all by the Open University in Great Britain (cf. 7.2). What was so spectacular in the work of these new institutions? The application of the principle of mass-production and mass-consumption of goods to academic teaching. It is no accident that distance teaching universities are among the largest universities in their respective countries; in some cases, they have to cope with hundreds of thousands of students (cf. 7.4). In this way they cooperate in the world-wide transformation process that is making academic education not just accessible to society's elite, as before, but to as many people as possible who are willing and able to study.
Peter Raggatt (1993, 21) characterised the working methods of these distance teaching universities using the example of the British Open University, which he knows well as he is a member of its School of Education. He regards the following features of industrialisation as being characteristic: restriction to a limited number of standard products, application of methods of mass-production, automation, division of labour to carry out specialised part tasks, centralized controls and a hierarchically structured bureaucracy. In Raggat's judgement, the teaching and learning process at the Open University has exactly these features. Here, the number of distance education course was restricted, as many as possible were then printed in a single printing run, which achieved the effect of mass-production (high volume, low cost). For cost reasons, these courses are used for several years, in fact, they often have a working life of eight years. Considerable cost savings through the increased production of longer standardised courses for relatively large homogeneous groups of students make a significant difference. Raggatt described this development stage of industrialisation as Fordism. All distance teaching universities work more or less in accordance with this form of industrialisation.
A controversy
Some authors have attempted to relativise the validity of this characterisation. David Sewart (1992, 229) pointed quite rightly to the application of principles of mass-production in today's mass universities in which there are certain forms of division of labour, specialisation and increasing alienation between teachers and students. And Nick Farnes (1993, 10) has even shown how the different phases of industrialisation had an effect on the overall educational system and enabled it to cope with the problems of mass. This was the only possible way to establish general primary school education on the basis of compulsory schooling, and from there to advance to the expansion of secondary education and tertiary education, a development that is culminating at present in efforts to establish mass higher education. Greville Rumble (1995a, 19) is also of the opinion that regarding industrialisation as typical of distance education i s incorrect, because proof can also be shown of the industrialisation of teaching and learning in classrooms and group instruction. If trends towards industrialisation can be verified in traditional universities, these critics claim that the characterisation of distance education as industrialised teaching and learning loses its force. In addition, characterising distance education as the most industrialised form of teaching and learning is also regarded as out of proportion and criticised because it is claimed that this characterisation is obsolete because for some time now we have been in a post-industrialist age.
The effect of industrial methods at traditional universities as well cannot be disputed. Why should it be? These developments merely confirm once again how industrialised methods of thinking and acting penetrate all areas of life and work, infiltrate them and alter them. But the concept of industrialised teaching and learning no longer refers to the application of individual or even several principles of industrialisation, but to the analogy between the teaching and learning process and the process of industrial production. In both cases, all their constitutive features are concentrated and linked to one another in a systematic sequence. Industrialised teaching therefore means, and this must be repeated here, at the same time, careful prior planning on a division of labour basis, costly development, and objectivisation through media, all of which makes academic teaching into a product which can be mass-produced in the same way as an industrial good, which is kept in store, distributed over a wide area, evaluated and optimised. Where else in the academic world can a comparable form of teaching be found? Nowhere, even if professors responsible for a field demarcate their subjects from one another (specialisation), solve accruing problems with members of the middle hierarchy (division of labour), discuss with students on the telephone, transmit their lectures to other rooms via the university's own TV system if lecture halls are crowded, and drive to university by car (mechanisation). However, these effects of industrialisation remain external to teaching and learning at a traditional university. In principle they still take place in accordance with the same structural patterns that stem from the pre-industrial age. The objections therefore do not hold water.
In addition, as a reaction to these critical relativisations we can also point to the fundamental and far-reaching difference between teaching at a traditional university and at a distance teaching university. No matter how much technological and organisational effort is used to operate and maintain traditional universities, in particular mass universities, teaching itself is - oral - the same as in antiquity in India, Egypt and Greece. In distance teaching universities, on the other hand, it takes place in an additional coded and media form and only on the basis of a bundle of industrialised processes. Is this statement banal? Not at all! All it does is bring to the point the peculiarity of the most industrialised teaching which will be explained by means of a brief industrial sociological observation with recourse to Habermas (cf. Peters 1968, 62).
Traditional teaching is communicative actions which grew out of traditional oral culture and are therefore elemental. Distance education, on the other hand, is only possible on the basis of instrumentally rational and strategic actions which have to be imparted technologically. To underline the difference still further with some of Habermas' categories, which he used to describe the industrialised society, the communicative structure of oral teaching can be described as follows: it is determined by reciprocal behavioural expectations and societal norms, it brings about the internalisation of roles and uses an intersubjectively divided language of communication. In distance education, the communicative structure is completely different: the actions of teachers and students are determined mainly through technical rules, it is a question of skills and qualifications and a context-free language is use d. This difference is decisive. And it is the result of an industrial process.
Let me stress once again: work processes at the periphery of teaching and learning can be industrialised to a great extent at traditional universities. In distance teaching universities they must be. Rumble refers above all to these work processes - printing, despatch, etc. - because he is interested in the management of teaching and learning systems. As pedagogues, however, we must concentrate on the process of interaction between teachers and students. If we do this, we can only classify oral teaching at traditional universities as pre-industrial on the basis of the criteria of the concept presented here; and, with regard to distance education, we must regard the set formula of the most industrialised form of teaching and learning as illuminating.
New concepts of industrialisation
It should be borne in mind that Peter Raggatt did not refer to these Fordist characteristics to eulogise the Open University but to criticise it. According to Raggatt, the Fordism of the Open University, and of course, of other distance teaching universities, is an obsolete model. He is not alone in this opinion but finds support from authors such as Campion (1995), Campion and Renner (1982) and Farnes (1993). In their opinion, distance education must adjust itself to the fundamental changes which all industrial societies are experiencing at the moment. Today, work is often organised and carried out in a completely different way to that of twenty years ago. The new problems facing distance education cannot be solved with the obsolete methods of rationalisation through mass-production, and new concepts must therefore be developed for its future developments. Approaches are already being discussed: neo< /I>-industrialised and post-industrialised forms of teaching and learning in distance education.
Neo-industrialisation (or neo-Fordism) has led to many changes in working life. The characteristic slogans here are high product innovation, high process variability, but at the same time, low degrees of responsibility for employees (Badham & Mathews 1989, quoted by Campion & Renner 1992, 12). The endeavour to achieve product innovation and process variability is a reaction to the development of the market and the changes in demand. It is possible at present because on the one hand the demands of consumers with more spending power have become higher, more specific and more varied, and on the other hand production and distribution of goods have been adapted to meet this because they have to a large extent been computeris ed. The aim is no longer to produce the same goods of the same quality at the lowest possible price for as many consumers as possible with the same needs. As we know, Ford sold more than 15 million copies of the same car model. This method of production led to a great equalisation of consumption. The problem now is to address many very specific consumer wishes. Goods are therefore produced in smaller volumes and constantly adapted to new requirements. In contrast, and this is typical for this concept, work is still being organised on the lines of the concept of industrialisation. This means: hierarchical graduations of responsibility and centralised control with the help of a bureaucratised administration.
If distance teaching universities wished to meet the challenges of neo-Fordism they would have to stop offering their courses, developed at great expense, standardised and produced in large numbers, which become more outdated from year to year in spite of all good intentions regarding course updating. Instead of this, they would undertake targeted efforts to adapt them rapidly to the new requirements and to "consumer wishes", which in this case are the different requirements of their students. According to this, what is no longer needed are "large-scale" courses for as many students as possible, but a variety of courses with low numbers which are constantly being updated (cf. Farnes 1993 on this).
With post-industrialisation (or post-Fordism), the same aims can be found as with neo-industrialisation, namely high product innovation and high process variability. But in addition, and this is decisive, there is a radically different direction in the organisation of work sequences, because the aim now is "high labour responsibility".
Considerable changes had to be made to achieve this. Goods are no longer mass-produced in the same form and kept in stock with the help of computer. They are now manufactured on demand and just in time. Even the special wishes of smaller consumer groups can be satisfied in this way. At the same time, the organisation of work itself is changed in this phase. Division of labour is limited and, if possible, done away with completely. Instead, smaller working groups with more qualifications and greater responsibility are formed. Hierarchical forms of organisation are replaced by horizontal networks of relationships. Instead of semi-skilled workers trained to operate machinery, there is a smaller number of more highly qualified and more flexible and versatile employees who can be complemented by a varying number of employees who are engaged on a temporary basis only to carry out current tasks. Cost savings are the first commandme nt to increase productivity, which is why companies aim for lean design, lean production and lean supply.
Those who are following this development must ask themselves whether requirements in the world of academic education and continuing education have not increased as well and become more varied and whether they can be satisfied with the previous methods of - industrialised - distance education. If the answer to this question is no, then we must consider whether distance teaching universities should not also attempt to recognise rapidly changing demands for education and continuing education and satisfy them by means of courses that can be drawn and amended easily (product innovation).
This itself would force distance teaching universities to alter their working processes. Instead of a centrally controlled system of development and production on the basis of a division of labour many smaller decentralised working groups would be formed who would be responsible themselves for the development of their own teaching programmes and would therefore be more autonomous - as against the outside world as well. But what is even more important is that the classical forms of teaching and learning in distance education (standardised courses, standardised counselling) would have to be replaced or complemented by forms that were much more flexible with regard to curriculums, time and location (variability of processes). Slogans such as autonomous learning, independent learning in the digital learning environment, teleconferencing, intensive personal counselling, contract learning and the combination with and integr ation of forms of traditional university teaching indicate the direction the development might take. It would be equal to a revolution.
Pedagogical consequences
In the context of this work the importance of the concepts of industrialised and post-industrialised teaching and learning sketched in here depends on whether and how far they are helpful for the planning development, control and interpretation of distance education.
This question is often put by sceptics who are unable to see how concepts that work with terms from industrial sociology - or, even worse, from the field of industrial production itself - can comprise pedagogical circumstances and reproduce them. To them, what happens in factories and lecture halls seems utterly disparate and incommensurable. In fact, it does appear to be difficult to derive starting points from these concepts, for example for the selection and evaluation of learning aims and contents, which is a main concern of humanist pedagogics. The clarification of genuine pedagogical or adult education questions using these concepts also appears to be difficult, if not downright impossible. The horizon of values does not become visible in theories of industrial production, if we disregard those with an instrumental mentality such as productivity or efficiency. At the same time, deeper analyses lead to int eresting insights.
First of all a general assessment: many decisions that are taken in the planning, development and revision of teaching and learning systems in distance education in compliance with and taking account of criteria of industrialisation, may first of all serve as the control of the overall process, but can at the same time have an effect on the ways and means with which university teachers teach and students learn. Thus, questions of pedagogics in the narrow sense come into play once again. The systematic connection between teaching and learning systems which are interpreted or developed in accordance with concepts of industrialisation, and modalities of teaching and learning is given from the very start because education and training of students is the "product" that is to be produced. All measures that enable students to learn, make it easier to learn or improve learning are pedagogical from this very intention, no matter whic h criteria of industrialisation or post-industrialisation accompanied those acting pedagogically. The mixture of economical, technological, organisational and pedagogical motives, which can of course be verified in every event organised in traditional university teaching, is simply more obvious in distance education. Because the pedagogical consequences of the three concepts sketched here, which are derived from forms of production, are naturally different, we will be examining them separately.
The concept of industrialised teaching and learning
The following specific pedagogical effects can be seen above all here:
• It opens up a macro-pedagogical perspective to those taking part in the planning and development of distance education. While traditional pedagogics focused during planning and preparation above all micro-pedagogically on the interaction between teachers and students, the view here is extended to cover the totality of all activities of the participants.
• For students it provides deep impressions of the connection between all teaching and learning activities and their integration in the process. The teaching and learning process does not start at the beginning of a lecture or seminar. It starts much earlier. And it does not end when students leave the lecture hall or the seminar room, but much later. The division of labour leads to the following sequence: planning, development, distribution, presentation, counselling and evaluation phases. These are all connected to and affect one another.
• The greatest effect of industrialised teaching is, however, a far-reaching change in teaching behaviour and perhaps even more in learning behaviour. Where specialisation based on the division of labour reduces university teachers to subject-matter specialists and requires distribution of teaching matter with the help of technical media and enables isolated initiated self-study which can only be interrupted occasionally by face-to-face communication with others, these are considerable changes in the field of pedagogics.
• The concept makes it easier for participants to behave in conformity with the system when teaching and learning. Industrialised teaching and learning is constituted through the interplay of many system elements. Only if we prepare ourselves for this and see ourselves as part of this type of system can we be successful in avoiding dysfunctional pedagogical actions. Those who adhere to the attitudes and ideas of pre-industrial teaching will certainly come to grief with them in distance education. The concepts of industrialised teaching and learning help us to recognise and avoid mixing elements of structurally completely different systems.
• Seen from a macro-pedagogical point of view the direct effects on teaching and learning are particularly serious and obvious. If industrialised working methods mean that tens or even hundreds of thousands are provided with an opportunity to continue their education by studying, although they would never have been able to do this in a conventional system, the effects on adult education and pedagogics cannot be overestimated, even if support for classes remote from the educational system through distance education is at present no longer en vogue.
• For teaching and learning itself, the development of courses on a basis of the division of labour and through the cooperation of specialists is extremely important because high quality material is created which is pedagogically suitable, reflects the latest levels of research and is presented particularly effectively. To a certain extent this enables a considerable improvement of the teaching and learning situation. At the same time, however, this pedagogical advantage turns out to be a disadvantage as well, if we look at it from the aspect of another way of understanding learning. It benefits, strengthens and entrenches the modus of expository teaching and receptive learning, which it is supposed to overcome. Autonomous learning is e xtremely difficult to realise when learners are guided in short steps in courses worked out to the very last detail, apart from the self-determination of the external study process.
• The development of closed curricula and teaching and learning models and learning in paths that are planned and provided for, is benefited. This makes the development of open curricula more difficult. Basically, there are not really any plans for taking off down self-chosen learning paths, creating a flexible system of multi-faceted learning programmes using different situations, media, institutions and taking account of the life and work situation of students. Open learning, in the real sense of the word, cannot take place.
The concept of neo-industrial teaching and learning
If this concept were realised the range of courses offered by distance teaching universities above all would be changed structurally, because "major" courses with long service lives would be replaced by short-term "minor" courses which can be amended and renewed quickly and are directed at many different learning interests (product innovation). This must of course have an effect on the way in which students learn. Because students must at this stage make their study wishes known, so that they can be considered, it is necessary that they become clear about what they really want to do and about the study programmes that can be most useful to them in their particular situation. This should activate them considerably. This forces them to abandon receptive learning in stretches. By itself, this would already be pedagogical progress. Because the multi-faceted courses must be adapted to the special learning sit uations of students and their study objects, they must also be student-oriented.
Distance education courses would still be developed centrally on the basis of division of labour, but mass-production would be considerably restricted. Organisation of teaching would be local, would be moved to study centres, for example, which would have more face-to-face phases than is possible in industrialised learning. The task here is to develop different forms in teaching (process variability). To achieve this, the establishment of mixed mode universities is aimed at in which comparatively small groups of students work because support for very large groups is neither planned nor possible any longer. The teaching and learning process finds support through more social contacts and more communication.
The concept of post-industrial teaching and learning
Decisive changes to teaching and learning behaviour would also take place under the influence of post-Fordism. The following scenario should make this clear:
Because advanced division of labour is withdrawn and decentralisation is aimed at, classical course development teams have the ground removed from under their feet. Instead, variable and short-term courses are developed by small working groups in the faculties and departments on their own responsibility. Professors and lecturers belong to these small working groups, which are now responsible for everything to do with their courses, not just for planning and design, but also for production, distribution, evaluation and continuous course care. They would also have to familiarise themselves with production technologies in the field of printing and video, but this has been made much easier by modern technical media for DTP, electronic publishing and media publishing (Kaderali et al. 1994) which are extremely user-friendly. Up to now, technical media have brought about a division of labour more in teaching and development work can now be concentrated again with the help of these new media. However, the responsibility of the teachers is restricted, because chairmanship of the group revolves among group members and representatives of students, tutors and other participants in the teaching and learning, or those affected by it, are included as partners. It is no longer expected that participants in course development are specialised experts but that they are in possession of broad and multi-faceted competence. With regard to curricular work, university teachers would no longer be expected to pass on the results of their research in the form of courses but to find out exactly the learning requirements of defined groups of students and make every effort to satisfy these requirements as quickly and effectively as possible.
This also has an effect on learning behaviour. The traditional relationship between teachers and students is altered in that learning is determined much more by students themselves. The post-modern awareness of life makes a more continuous communication and interaction, (as in life) within the group into a focal point of distance education and allocates a rather attendant and supplementary role to learning in isolation with structured texts. In this way, the previous relationship of the two learning forms to one another, which is a consequence of the concept of independent learning, is turned on its head.
In order to be able to achieve this kind of distance education, supporters of post-industrialised learning are also aiming at the establishment of the organisational form of the dual or mixed mode university. Mixed forms consisting of a distance teaching university and a traditional university would lead to a considerable diversification of the teaching programmes for both groups of students and reduce the cost of studying (cf. Campion and Renner 1992, 11). In this kind of institution learning in small groups would be favoured, which means that the aim of mass higher education would become less important. On the whole, according to Campion at least (1991), distance education would in this way become "more decentralised, more democratic, more oriented to co-determination, more open and more flexible", which means that this teaching and learning would be differentiated from that of industrial ised distance education from the point of view of pedagogics as well, because it would also provide better conditions for socialisation.
Two tasks for distance teaching pedagogics
Firstly, the validity and binding nature of the concepts of neo-Fordism and post-Fordism would have to be examined. The analogy conclusion that has been indicated might just be unfounded and may even be incorrect. Along with Greville Rumble (1995b, 26), many observers will not believe in an automatic adaptation of the methods of distance education to the latest structural alterations of methods in industrial production, particularly when they only become clear in some sectors and are exemplified above all in just a few branches, for example, motor vehicle production. If in fact there continue to be correlations between the methods of the industrial production of goods and those of industrialised teaching and learning, they are certainly not as unheralded as this has been shown. Some of the analogies presented are astonishing, if they are in fact corr ect, just as those which led in the past to the development of the concept of industrialised teaching and learning.
Secondly, post-industrial models must be worked out and experiment carried out with them in practice, if the feasibility of the post-industrial concept is to be verified. These models would have to correspond to the theoretical premises referred to as well as absorbing the concepts of open, autonomous and communicative learning. Above all, however, they would have to make use of the new opportunities made available by digital teaching and learning. We may then be able to see the outlines and structures of a university of the future (cf. 8.2).
Doubts and misgivings
During discussions of the two post-industrial concepts of distance education some critical points are encountered which up to now have not been included sufficiently in the calculations. These are:
• Universities have survived many reforms unchanged at heart. Distance teaching universities are universities. In particular where we are dealing with autonomous, self-governing institutions it is easy for the openly propagated or even concealed self-interest of professors or institutions themselves to resist the realisation of the post-industrial concepts.
• Distance teaching universities are involved in both higher education and in continuing education. While it is possible in the case of continuing education to imagine a variable system of "smaller" courses tailored exactly to the requirements of students, this is more difficult in the case of the more rigid, examination-related specialist degree courses. In any case, resistance would be at its greatest here.
• Distance teaching universities have fixed structures that were designed and developed with regard to industrialised teaching and learning and by and large they have proved their value within the meaning of this system. Many university teachers would strenuously oppose replacing these structures for new one that are either untried or have only been tested in experimental situations.
• The models of post- and neo-Fordist distance education abandon some constitutive advantages of industrialised teaching and learning: the relative independence of time and location is restricted, professional course development and scientific accompaniment is reduced, costs degression with large numbers of students is no longer possible.
• Some of the students at distance teaching universities and open universities will be excluded because their employment cannot be reconciled with attendance at a mixed-mode university.
• Commercial organisers of distance education will not wish to do without the economic advantages of the mass-production of standardised distance education courses and will probably adhere to them.
• Distance education of the future could in certain circumstances be organised along the lines of all three concepts. These seems obvious because theoreticians of post-industrial production regard it as possible that the three different concepts can exist alongside each other in the economy of a country or region and be in competition with on another (Campion and Renner 1992, 12).
• The post-industrial concept is criticised by quite a few experts because its influence on social and industrial transformations is not proven. The optimism that more democratic methods of production will be established with its help does not appear to be justified. Campion and Renner (1992, 13) mention no less than six authors who have expressed doubts on this topic.
• The trend I have referred to of employing only a hard core of highly qualified specialists at a distance teaching university which is then extended as required by staff on short-term contracts (core and peripheral staffing) recalls the practice of private distance schools and cannot be tolerated for reasons of academic quality and organisational requirements, but above all for social reasons.
Perhaps these misgivings will become without foundation when the digital revolution thoroughly mixes up the areas of distance education and traditional university education and forces both to new methods of working. But until then they will continue to play a part in relevant discussions.
Commentary
The concept of industrialised learning obviously provided many distance education experts and practitioners in the sixties and seventies with an explanatory pattern that made clear to them just how their actions are and must be different from those of their colleagues in traditional university education, and not merely accidentally, but structurally. It starts, as they could see, from other premises, follows other laws and provides in part enormous opportunities which people were able to substantiate logically. Those among them who thought pedagogically were able not only to recognise the particular strengths inherent in distance education because its industrialised structure but also to substantiate them theoretically. At the same time it was easier for them to accept its not inconsiderable deficits as in-built. Above all it could be seen just h ow unsuitable the widespread habit is to evaluate the conception, working methods and results of distance education with the help of criteria that were developed in conventional academic systems and correspond to pre-industrial criteria.

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Industrialized Teaching and Learning (1997)
Otto Peters
Relevance
The impulse for the interpretation of distance education as an industrialised form of teaching and learning, or as the most industrialised form of teaching and learning, came thirty years ago (Peters 1967). Interest in this has never waned but on the contrary increased. In recent years, the discussion on this attitude towards distance education has even been intensified (Peters 1989, Peters 1994, Campion 1993, Farnes 1993, Raggatt 1993, Rumble 1995a, 1995b, 1995c). This discussion is therefore of some importance because the aspect of industrialisation is not found in pedagogical literature with regard to any other form of teaching and learning. The discussion underlines once again the special character of distance education.
Description of the concept
In the 1960s, when distance education was still being disregarded by pedagogic, in spite of the fact that it even then had a seventy-year long history to look back on, and was even terra incognita for research, it was difficult to take a look at this form of teaching and learning, let alone to make it the subject of academic research. However, in the face of the increasing interest it was high time that its pedagogical advantages and deficiencies were recognized and people made aware of its special features. Of course, it could be described using traditional pedagogical categories. But attempts of this nature (Peters 1967) remained unsatisfactory. Where was the gain if the restricted subject-matter, the special role of the media and, under the anthropological conditions, the advanced age and employment of students were considered? Or where was the gain if distance education was characterized by the separation of students from teachers and fellow-students, indirect communication by means of correspondence and the predominant use of the medium of printed material? It was always seen merely as a special form of traditional study, although it differs from this to a considerable extent.
To grasp what was special and "essential" about distance education, it was necessary to take a look at its structural differences. It was helpful here to examine the reasons for and circumstances of its creation. For example, the question might be asked why distance teaching had developed in the mid-19th century outside the institutions which the state had established for educating and training its citizens. Why was it able to gain in importance in the following decades although it was neither intended, nor desired, let alone planned, by those responsible for the nation's education? If we follow this line of questioning we come across the first indications of the different structural nature of distance education. In fact, we come up against a fundamental difference. In the case of distance education, funds were not to be applied, as is usual with state education, so that people could be educated and trained. People were supposed to learn so that the institute providing the instruction could make money or, in other words, make a profit. There were commercial reasons for the creation of distance education. Its pioneers were businessmen.
But there was yet another pointer: as businessmen, the first operators of correspondence schools in the age when industrialism began to flourish recognized the extraordinary opportunities available to those who were no longer satisfied with the traditional methods of teaching and learning. Private schools were prepared to use the new methods of industrial goods production in the teaching and learning process.
It is difficult to imagine how the complete change in teaching and learning methods could have been any more radical: beforehand, everything on the teaching side had been in a single hand, now there was division of labour. For example, planning, developing and presenting the subject-matter and correcting assignments was now done by different persons at different times and at different locations. The development of written courses before the start of teaching itself became more and more important, and corresponded to production planning in the industrialised production process, which was carried out by specially qualified experts. Where teachers had previously literally used their physical presence to present the subject-matter, this was now done on a mechanized (and later automated) basis. Beforehand, teaching had been individualised to a great extent by the personality of the teacher. Now it was standardized, normalized and formalised. If teaching had previously been at all times a unique "event" in the subjective experience of participants who were in interplay with a learning group, it was now objectivised, or offered to all participants of a defined course in the same way and could be repeated at will. The most important consequence of objectivisation was that teaching became a product which could be altered and optimized, and above all sold. And not just sold locally but, like an industrially manufactured product, anywhere. In fact, people began to advertise the product "teaching" and to open up cross-border markets to improve its sales results.
Because of these structural characteristics, distance teaching in the 19th century and distance education in the 20th differ in decisive points from traditional face-to-face teaching with a group of learners. Its organisers rationalised teaching to a much greater extent than was usual in traditional teaching. To do this they used machines - the printing press - to make use of the benefits of mass-production, as well as transport mechanisms, to distribute instruction, and they also aimed at acquiring as many students (as paying customers) as possible. In fact the number of students was regarded as a guide to success. All the special features make it obvious that distance teaching at this period is to be regarded as a structurally fundamentally different system of teaching and learning. This justifies seeing it, in fact, as the most (intensively) industrialised from of teaching and learning.
The concept of industrialised teaching was confirmed by the work of the distance teaching universities which have been founded since the 1970s, above all by the Open University in Great Britain (cf. 7.2). What was so spectacular in the work of these new institutions? The application of the principle of mass-production and mass-consumption of goods to academic teaching. It is no accident that distance teaching universities are among the largest universities in their respective countries; in some cases, they have to cope with hundreds of thousands of students (cf. 7.4). In this way they cooperate in the world-wide transformation process that is making academic education not just accessible to society's elite, as before, but to as many people as possible who are willing and able to study.
Peter Raggatt (1993, 21) characterised the working methods of these distance teaching universities using the example of the British Open University, which he knows well as he is a member of its School of Education. He regards the following features of industrialisation as being characteristic: restriction to a limited number of standard products, application of methods of mass-production, automation, division of labour to carry out specialised part tasks, centralized controls and a hierarchically structured bureaucracy. In Raggat's judgement, the teaching and learning process at the Open University has exactly these features. Here, the number of distance education course was restricted, as many as possible were then printed in a single printing run, which achieved the effect of mass-production (high volume, low cost). For cost reasons, these courses are used for several years, in fact, they often have a working life of eight years. Considerable cost savings through the increased production of longer standardised courses for relatively large homogeneous groups of students make a significant difference. Raggatt described this development stage of industrialisation as Fordism. All distance teaching universities work more or less in accordance with this form of industrialisation.
A controversy
Some authors have attempted to relativise the validity of this characterisation. David Sewart (1992, 229) pointed quite rightly to the application of principles of mass-production in today's mass universities in which there are certain forms of division of labour, specialisation and increasing alienation between teachers and students. And Nick Farnes (1993, 10) has even shown how the different phases of industrialisation had an effect on the overall educational system and enabled it to cope with the problems of mass. This was the only possible way to establish general primary school education on the basis of compulsory schooling, and from there to advance to the expansion of secondary education and tertiary education, a development that is culminating at present in efforts to establish mass higher education. Greville Rumble (1995a, 19) is also of the opinion that regarding industrialisation as typical of distance education is incorrect, because proof can also be shown of the industrialisation of teaching and learning in classrooms and group instruction. If trends towards industrialisation can be verified in traditional universities, these critics claim that the characterisation of distance education as industrialised teaching and learning loses its force. In addition, characterising distance education as the most industrialised form of teaching and learning is also regarded as out of proportion and criticised because it is claimed that this characterisation is obsolete because for some time now we have been in a post-industrialist age.
The effect of industrial methods at traditional universities as well cannot be disputed. Why should it be? These developments merely confirm once again how industrialised methods of thinking and acting penetrate all areas of life and work, infiltrate them and alter them. But the concept of industrialised teaching and learning no longer refers to the application of individual or even several principles of industrialisation, but to the analogy between the teaching and learning process and the process of industrial production. In both cases, all their constitutive features are concentrated and linked to one another in a systematic sequence. Industrialised teaching therefore means, and this must be repeated here, at the same time, careful prior planning on a division of labour basis, costly development, and objectivisation through media, all of which makes academic teaching into a product which can be mass-produced in the same way as an industrial good, which is kept in store, distributed over a wide area, evaluated and optimised. Where else in the academic world can a comparable form of teaching be found? Nowhere, even if professors responsible for a field demarcate their subjects from one another (specialisation), solve accruing problems with members of the middle hierarchy (division of labour), discuss with students on the telephone, transmit their lectures to other rooms via the university's own TV system if lecture halls are crowded, and drive to university by car (mechanisation). However, these effects of industrialisation remain external to teaching and learning at a traditional university. In principle they still take place in accordance with the same structural patterns that stem from the pre-industrial age. The objections therefore do not hold water.
In addition, as a reaction to these critical relativisations we can also point to the fundamental and far-reaching difference between teaching at a traditional university and at a distance teaching university. No matter how much technological and organisational effort is used to operate and maintain traditional universities, in particular mass universities, teaching itself is - oral - the same as in antiquity in India, Egypt and Greece. In distance teaching universities, on the other hand, it takes place in an additional coded and media form and only on the basis of a bundle of industrialised processes. Is this statement banal? Not at all! All it does is bring to the point the peculiarity of the most industrialised teaching which will be explained by means of a brief industrial sociological observation with recourse to Habermas (cf. Peters 1968, 62).
Traditional teaching is communicative actions which grew out of traditional oral culture and are therefore elemental. Distance education, on the other hand, is only possible on the basis of instrumentally rational and strategic actions which have to be imparted technologically. To underline the difference still further with some of Habermas' categories, which he used to describe the industrialised society, the communicative structure of oral teaching can be described as follows: it is determined by reciprocal behavioural expectations and societal norms, it brings about the internalisation of roles and uses an intersubjectively divided language of communication. In distance education, the communicative structure is completely different: the actions of teachers and students are determined mainly through technical rules, it is a question of skills and qualifications and a context-free language is used. This difference is decisive. And it is the result of an industrial process.
Let me stress once again: work processes at the periphery of teaching and learning can be industrialised to a great extent at traditional universities. In distance teaching universities they must be. Rumble refers above all to these work processes - printing, despatch, etc. - because he is interested in the management of teaching and learning systems. As pedagogues, however, we must concentrate on the process of interaction between teachers and students. If we do this, we can only classify oral teaching at traditional universities as pre-industrial on the basis of the criteria of the concept presented here; and, with regard to distance education, we must regard the set formula of the most industrialised form of teaching and learning as illuminating.
New concepts of industrialisation
It should be borne in mind that Peter Raggatt did not refer to these Fordist characteristics to eulogise the Open University but to criticise it. According to Raggatt, the Fordism of the Open University, and of course, of other distance teaching universities, is an obsolete model. He is not alone in this opinion but finds support from authors such as Campion (1995), Campion and Renner (1982) and Farnes (1993). In their opinion, distance education must adjust itself to the fundamental changes which all industrial societies are experiencing at the moment. Today, work is often organised and carried out in a completely different way to that of twenty years ago. The new problems facing distance education cannot be solved with the obsolete methods of rationalisation through mass-production, and new concepts must therefore be developed for its future developments. Approaches are already being discussed: neo-industrialised and post-industrialised forms of teaching and learning in distance education.
Neo-industrialisation (or neo-Fordism) has led to many changes in working life. The characteristic slogans here are high product innovation, high process variability, but at the same time, low degrees of responsibility for employees (Badham & Mathews 1989, quoted by Campion & Renner 1992, 12). The endeavour to achieve product innovation and process variability is a reaction to the development of the market and the changes in demand. It is possible at present because on the one hand the demands of consumers with more spending power have become higher, more specific and more varied, and on the other hand production and distribution of goods have been adapted to meet this because they have to a large extent been computerised. The aim is no longer to produce the same goods of the same quality at the lowest possible price for as many consumers as possible with the same needs. As we know, Ford sold more than 15 million copies of the same car model. This method of production led to a great equalisation of consumption. The problem now is to address many very specific consumer wishes. Goods are therefore produced in smaller volumes and constantly adapted to new requirements. In contrast, and this is typical for this concept, work is still being organised on the lines of the concept of industrialisation. This means: hierarchical graduations of responsibility and centralised control with the help of a bureaucratised administration.
If distance teaching universities wished to meet the challenges of neo-Fordism they would have to stop offering their courses, developed at great expense, standardised and produced in large numbers, which become more outdated from year to year in spite of all good intentions regarding course updating. Instead of this, they would undertake targeted efforts to adapt them rapidly to the new requirements and to "consumer wishes", which in this case are the different requirements of their students. According to this, what is no longer needed are "large-scale" courses for as many students as possible, but a variety of courses with low numbers which are constantly being updated (cf. Farnes 1993 on this).
With post-industrialisation (or post-Fordism), the same aims can be found as with neo-industrialisation, namely high product innovation and high process variability. But in addition, and this is decisive, there is a radically different direction in the organisation of work sequences, because the aim now is "high labour responsibility".
Considerable changes had to be made to achieve this. Goods are no longer mass-produced in the same form and kept in stock with the help of computer. They are now manufactured on demand and just in time. Even the special wishes of smaller consumer groups can be satisfied in this way. At the same time, the organisation of work itself is changed in this phase. Division of labour is limited and, if possible, done away with completely. Instead, smaller working groups with more qualifications and greater responsibility are formed. Hierarchical forms of organisation are replaced by horizontal networks of relationships. Instead of semi-skilled workers trained to operate machinery, there is a smaller number of more highly qualified and more flexible and versatile employees who can be complemented by a varying number of employees who are engaged on a temporary basis only to carry out current tasks. Cost savings are the first commandment to increase productivity, which is why companies aim for lean design, lean production and lean supply.
Those who are following this development must ask themselves whether requirements in the world of academic education and continuing education have not increased as well and become more varied and whether they can be satisfied with the previous methods of - industrialised - distance education. If the answer to this question is no, then we must consider whether distance teaching universities should not also attempt to recognise rapidly changing demands for education and continuing education and satisfy them by means of courses that can be drawn and amended easily (product innovation).
This itself would force distance teaching universities to alter their working processes. Instead of a centrally controlled system of development and production on the basis of a division of labour many smaller decentralised working groups would be formed who would be responsible themselves for the development of their own teaching programmes and would therefore be more autonomous - as against the outside world as well. But what is even more important is that the classical forms of teaching and learning in distance education (standardised courses, standardised counselling) would have to be replaced or complemented by forms that were much more flexible with regard to curriculums, time and location (variability of processes). Slogans such as autonomous learning, independent learning in the digital learning environment, teleconferencing, intensive personal counselling, contract learning and the combination with and integration of forms of traditional university teaching indicate the direction the development might take. It would be equal to a revolution.
Pedagogical consequences
In the context of this work the importance of the concepts of industrialised and post-industrialised teaching and learning sketched in here depends on whether and how far they are helpful for the planning development, control and interpretation of distance education.
This question is often put by sceptics who are unable to see how concepts that work with terms from industrial sociology - or, even worse, from the field of industrial production itself - can comprise pedagogical circumstances and reproduce them. To them, what happens in factories and lecture halls seems utterly disparate and incommensurable. In fact, it does appear to be difficult to derive starting points from these concepts, for example for the selection and evaluation of learning aims and contents, which is a main concern of humanist pedagogics. The clarification of genuine pedagogical or adult education questions using these concepts also appears to be difficult, if not downright impossible. The horizon of values does not become visible in theories of industrial production, if we disregard those with an instrumental mentality such as productivity or efficiency. At the same time, deeper analyses lead to interesting insights.
First of all a general assessment: many decisions that are taken in the planning, development and revision of teaching and learning systems in distance education in compliance with and taking account of criteria of industrialisation, may first of all serve as the control of the overall process, but can at the same time have an effect on the ways and means with which university teachers teach and students learn. Thus, questions of pedagogics in the narrow sense come into play once again. The systematic connection between teaching and learning systems which are interpreted or developed in accordance with concepts of industrialisation, and modalities of teaching and learning is given from the very start because education and training of students is the "product" that is to be produced. All measures that enable students to learn, make it easier to learn or improve learning are pedagogical from this very intention, no matter which criteria of industrialisation or post-industrialisation accompanied those acting pedagogically. The mixture of economical, technological, organisational and pedagogical motives, which can of course be verified in every event organised in traditional university teaching, is simply more obvious in distance education. Because the pedagogical consequences of the three concepts sketched here, which are derived from forms of production, are naturally different, we will be examining them separately.
The concept of industrialised teaching and learning
The following specific pedagogical effects can be seen above all here:
• It opens up a macro-pedagogical perspective to those taking part in the planning and development of distance education. While traditional pedagogics focused during planning and preparation above all micro-pedagogically on the interaction between teachers and students, the view here is extended to cover the totality of all activities of the participants.
• For students it provides deep impressions of the connection between all teaching and learning activities and their integration in the process. The teaching and learning process does not start at the beginning of a lecture or seminar. It starts much earlier. And it does not end when students leave the lecture hall or the seminar room, but much later. The division of labour leads to the following sequence: planning, development, distribution, presentation, counselling and evaluation phases. These are all connected to and affect one another.
• The greatest effect of industrialised teaching is, however, a far-reaching change in teaching behaviour and perhaps even more in learning behaviour. Where specialisation based on the division of labour reduces university teachers to subject-matter specialists and requires distribution of teaching matter with the help of technical media and enables isolated initiated self-study which can only be interrupted occasionally by face-to-face communication with others, these are considerable changes in the field of pedagogics.
• The concept makes it easier for participants to behave in conformity with the system when teaching and learning. Industrialised teaching and learning is constituted through the interplay of many system elements. Only if we prepare ourselves for this and see ourselves as part of this type of system can we be successful in avoiding dysfunctional pedagogical actions. Those who adhere to the attitudes and ideas of pre-industrial teaching will certainly come to grief with them in distance education. The concepts of industrialised teaching and learning help us to recognise and avoid mixing elements of structurally completely different systems.
• Seen from a macro-pedagogical point of view the direct effects on teaching and learning are particularly serious and obvious. If industrialised working methods mean that tens or even hundreds of thousands are provided with an opportunity to continue their education by studying, although they would never have been able to do this in a conventional system, the effects on adult education and pedagogics cannot be overestimated, even if support for classes remote from the educational system through distance education is at present no longer en vogue.
• For teaching and learning itself, the development of courses on a basis of the division of labour and through the cooperation of specialists is extremely important because high quality material is created which is pedagogically suitable, reflects the latest levels of research and is presented particularly effectively. To a certain extent this enables a considerable improvement of the teaching and learning situation. At the same time, however, this pedagogical advantage turns out to be a disadvantage as well, if we look at it from the aspect of another way of understanding learning. It benefits, strengthens and entrenches the modus of expository teaching and receptive learning, which it is supposed to overcome. Autonomous learning is extremely difficult to realise when learners are guided in short steps in courses worked out to the very last detail, apart from the self-determination of the external study process.
• The development of closed curricula and teaching and learning models and learning in paths that are planned and provided for, is benefited. This makes the development of open curricula more difficult. Basically, there are not really any plans for taking off down self-chosen learning paths, creating a flexible system of multi-faceted learning programmes using different situations, media, institutions and taking account of the life and work situation of students. Open learning, in the real sense of the word, cannot take place.
The concept of neo-industrial teaching and learning
If this concept were realised the range of courses offered by distance teaching universities above all would be changed structurally, because "major" courses with long service lives would be replaced by short-term "minor" courses which can be amended and renewed quickly and are directed at many different learning interests (product innovation). This must of course have an effect on the way in which students learn. Because students must at this stage make their study wishes known, so that they can be considered, it is necessary that they become clear about what they really want to do and about the study programmes that can be most useful to them in their particular situation. This should activate them considerably. This forces them to abandon receptive learning in stretches. By itself, this would already be pedagogical progress. Because the multi-faceted courses must be adapted to the special learning situations of students and their study objects, they must also be student-oriented.
Distance education courses would still be developed centrally on the basis of division of labour, but mass-production would be considerably restricted. Organisation of teaching would be local, would be moved to study centres, for example, which would have more face-to-face phases than is possible in industrialised learning. The task here is to develop different forms in teaching (process variability). To achieve this, the establishment of mixed mode universities is aimed at in which comparatively small groups of students work because support for very large groups is neither planned nor possible any longer. The teaching and learning process finds support through more social contacts and more communication.
The concept of post-industrial teaching and learning
Decisive changes to teaching and learning behaviour would also take place under the influence of post-Fordism. The following scenario should make this clear:
Because advanced division of labour is withdrawn and decentralisation is aimed at, classical course development teams have the ground removed from under their feet. Instead, variable and short-term courses are developed by small working groups in the faculties and departments on their own responsibility. Professors and lecturers belong to these small working groups, which are now responsible for everything to do with their courses, not just for planning and design, but also for production, distribution, evaluation and continuous course care. They would also have to familiarise themselves with production technologies in the field of printing and video, but this has been made much easier by modern technical media for DTP, electronic publishing and media publishing (Kaderali et al. 1994) which are extremely user-friendly. Up to now, technical media have brought about a division of labour more in teaching and development work can now be concentrated again with the help of these new media. However, the responsibility of the teachers is restricted, because chairmanship of the group revolves among group members and representatives of students, tutors and other participants in the teaching and learning, or those affected by it, are included as partners. It is no longer expected that participants in course development are specialised experts but that they are in possession of broad and multi-faceted competence. With regard to curricular work, university teachers would no longer be expected to pass on the results of their research in the form of courses but to find out exactly the learning requirements of defined groups of students and make every effort to satisfy these requirements as quickly and effectively as possible.
This also has an effect on learning behaviour. The traditional relationship between teachers and students is altered in that learning is determined much more by students themselves. The post-modern awareness of life makes a more continuous communication and interaction, (as in life) within the group into a focal point of distance education and allocates a rather attendant and supplementary role to learning in isolation with structured texts. In this way, the previous relationship of the two learning forms to one another, which is a consequence of the concept of independent learning, is turned on its head.
In order to be able to achieve this kind of distance education, supporters of post-industrialised learning are also aiming at the establishment of the organisational form of the dual or mixed mode university. Mixed forms consisting of a distance teaching university and a traditional university would lead to a considerable diversification of the teaching programmes for both groups of students and reduce the cost of studying (cf. Campion and Renner 1992, 11). In this kind of institution learning in small groups would be favoured, which means that the aim of mass higher education would become less important. On the whole, according to Campion at least (1991), distance education would in this way become "more decentralised, more democratic, more oriented to co-determination, more open and more flexible", which means that this teaching and learning would be differentiated from that of industrialised distance education from the point of view of pedagogics as well, because it would also provide better conditions for socialisation.
Two tasks for distance teaching pedagogics
Firstly, the validity and binding nature of the concepts of neo-Fordism and post-Fordism would have to be examined. The analogy conclusion that has been indicated might just be unfounded and may even be incorrect. Along with Greville Rumble (1995b, 26), many observers will not believe in an automatic adaptation of the methods of distance education to the latest structural alterations of methods in industrial production, particularly when they only become clear in some sectors and are exemplified above all in just a few branches, for example, motor vehicle production. If in fact there continue to be correlations between the methods of the industrial production of goods and those of industrialised teaching and learning, they are certainly not as unheralded as this has been shown. Some of the analogies presented are astonishing, if they are in fact correct, just as those which led in the past to the development of the concept of industrialised teaching and learning.
Secondly, post-industrial models must be worked out and experiment carried out with them in practice, if the feasibility of the post-industrial concept is to be verified. These models would have to correspond to the theoretical premises referred to as well as absorbing the concepts of open, autonomous and communicative learning. Above all, however, they would have to make use of the new opportunities made available by digital teaching and learning. We may then be able to see the outlines and structures of a university of the future (cf. 8.2).
Doubts and misgivings
During discussions of the two post-industrial concepts of distance education some critical points are encountered which up to now have not been included sufficiently in the calculations. These are:
• Universities have survived many reforms unchanged at heart. Distance teaching universities are universities. In particular where we are dealing with autonomous, self-governing institutions it is easy for the openly propagated or even concealed self-interest of professors or institutions themselves to resist the realisation of the post-industrial concepts.
• Distance teaching universities are involved in both higher education and in continuing education. While it is possible in the case of continuing education to imagine a variable system of "smaller" courses tailored exactly to the requirements of students, this is more difficult in the case of the more rigid, examination-related specialist degree courses. In any case, resistance would be at its greatest here.
• Distance teaching universities have fixed structures that were designed and developed with regard to industrialised teaching and learning and by and large they have proved their value within the meaning of this system. Many university teachers would strenuously oppose replacing these structures for new one that are either untried or have only been tested in experimental situations.
• The models of post- and neo-Fordist distance education abandon some constitutive advantages of industrialised teaching and learning: the relative independence of time and location is restricted, professional course development and scientific accompaniment is reduced, costs degression with large numbers of students is no longer possible.
• Some of the students at distance teaching universities and open universities will be excluded because their employment cannot be reconciled with attendance at a mixed-mode university.
• Commercial organisers of distance education will not wish to do without the economic advantages of the mass-production of standardised distance education courses and will probably adhere to them.
• Distance education of the future could in certain circumstances be organised along the lines of all three concepts. These seems obvious because theoreticians of post-industrial production regard it as possible that the three different concepts can exist alongside each other in the economy of a country or region and be in competition with on another (Campion and Renner 1992, 12).
• The post-industrial concept is criticised by quite a few experts because its influence on social and industrial transformations is not proven. The optimism that more democratic methods of production will be established with its help does not appear to be justified. Campion and Renner (1992, 13) mention no less than six authors who have expressed doubts on this topic.
• The trend I have referred to of employing only a hard core of highly qualified specialists at a distance teaching university which is then extended as required by staff on short-term contracts (core and peripheral staffing) recalls the practice of private distance schools and cannot be tolerated for reasons of academic quality and organisational requirements, but above all for social reasons.
Perhaps these misgivings will become without foundation when the digital revolution thoroughly mixes up the areas of distance education and traditional university education and forces both to new methods of working. But until then they will continue to play a part in relevant discussions.
Commentary
The concept of industrialised learning obviously provided many distance education experts and practitioners in the sixties and seventies with an explanatory pattern that made clear to them just how their actions are and must be different from those of their colleagues in traditional university education, and not merely accidentally, but structurally. It starts, as they could see, from other premises, follows other laws and provides in part enormous opportunities which people were able to substantiate logically. Those among them who thought pedagogically were able not only to recognise the particular strengths inherent in distance education because its industrialised structure but also to substantiate them theoretically. At the same time it was easier for them to accept its not inconsiderable deficits as in-built. Above all it could be seen just how unsuitable the widespread habit is to evaluate the conception, working methods and results of distance education with the help of criteria that were developed in conventional academic systems and correspond to pre-industrial criteria.

Essay Instructions: You are to write 2-page paper. Read the article below and answer the discussion questions. State the question first and then continue to answer. Do Not Use Outside Sources. Quoting from article use APA format.
Friedberg (2001) describes several ways of trying to understand the interactions of organizations and individuals. In one explanation Friedberg suggests that an organization could be understood as an arena, in which individuals “are free to choose their behavior, but within limits.”
Discussion questions
1.What are some examples of limits to behavioral freedom for an adult educator within an organization?
2.What might be the implications of not recognizing or ignoring these limits?

The social of organizations like its larger sister the theory of organizations, it is not a unified field of research. In its already long history it has been seen many different approaches which have left a more or profound imprint on our way of thinking about organizations. It is beyond the scope of the article to a temp to complete an account to this diversity. However taking a distance view one can distinguish two sociological templates, which structure around two understandings of the word organization. The first sees organization as a structural form, the nature, characteristics, and dynamics of which have to be explained, whereas the second insists on the processes of structuring, i.e. organization collective human action. Within certain limits, the explanandum is of course similar. For both it is the structure and the functioning of organizations but they have different starting points, take different routes, and put the emphasis differently. Thus, the first starts the organization and will focus on the variations of their forms: as a consequence, organizations and its basic unit of analysis and it will analyze the social dynamics on the inter-organizational, sectoral, or societal level in order to explain organizational form. The second, on the other hand, will start with social actions and will consider the sheer existence and maintenance of organizations that the basic problem to be addressed: as a consequence, it will concentrate its analysis on interaction processes within organizations, will take individual (their decisions and their actions) in its basic unit of analysis, and will stress the differences between individual organizations even if they belong to the same organizational field. Both strands have the intellectual roots in the seminal work of Max Weber. Weber develops a theory of the forms of legitimate domination in society (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal forms of domination) which roughly defines the basis of the legitimacy of power and influence in a given society and condition these types of organizations to be found within each of these regimes of domination. He then argues that bureaucracy is the organizational form developing within the framework of the rational-legal form of domination and proceeds to give an ideal -- typical description of bureaucracy, i.e. a highly formalized and hierarchical form of organization drifter mystics by the predominance of written rules and procedures, formalized past, precise definitions of competence, clear lines of subordination, the explicit separation of ownership and management responsibility, and the mayor principle as the only legitimate route of access to the different functions in the organization. Max Weber sees unifying dynamics at work pushing towards the development and generalization of bureaucratic organizations as they are both legitimate and more efficient. He sees the roots of his greater deficiency essentially and the fact that the arbitrary imposition of power and the resulting interpersonal conflicts are limited by written rules and the procedure which allows for more rational, foreseeable, and standardized execution of task. This analysis include all of the themes which organizational sociology has developed and dwelled on through all the years. It also contains the roots for the divide which still structures two traditions in organizational sociology today one is concerned with the study of organizational forms as they are shaped by the constraints of efficiency (this is the main concern of what has become known as structural contingency theory) or legitimacy (this is the theme of the Neo-institutional school in organizational sociology). The other tradition emphasizes the study of interaction and decision making process which produce as well as reproduce regularities and structures, i.e. organization, and which first developed out of the empirical analysis of public and private bureaucracies.
In the 1940s and 1950s bureaucracy was a central theme of imperial study of organizations especially in the United States. This has certainly to do with the proliferation of huge administrative bureaucracies and the seemingly unlimited growth of the large corporations, which was overlooked upon with both fascination, and fear. Following Max Weber's analysis this movement was interpret as the proof of the greater efficiency made possible by the standardization, formalization, and depersonalization characteristics of this form of organization. However following R. Michel’s 1914 iron law of oligarchic the secular movement raise fears because the conditioning powers of these huge organizations and the oligarchy and technocratic tendencies inherent in their functioning were seen as a threat to democracy and the ideals of reform: organizations as means of collective action in favor of reform set free forces which were in contradiction with these ideals. The main interests of the early studies of bureaucracy, Gouldner 1954 was to have considered bureaucracies as a complex social system, which had to be studied empirically in order to reconstruct and understand its formal structures and dynamics. Applying the lessons and methods from industrial sociology which developed out of the Hawthorne experiments and the human relations movement sparked by Roethlisberger’s and Mayo account of them, these studies produce results which were in contradiction to both the extrapolation and fears mentioned above. They show that bureaucracy is not only were not always efficient, but also produce in formal behavior and dynamics which were often dysfunctional i.e. detrimental to the attainment of their goals and which in any case created a greater diversity in the ways organizations function then would have been expected on theoretical grounds. Thus, Merton shows that the impersonal rules or in which bureaucracies are bilked induced rigid and ritualistic behavior on the part of their members which are dysfunctional for their capacity to respond to the needs of their clients. Blau 1955 demonstrates that the efficiency of bureaucracy is not the product of their formal characteristics but bases his argument on the fact that their members take it upon themselves to break the rules in order to enhance the quality and efficiency of their work. These studies, however, go beyond merely showing be inefficiencies or deviations of bureaucracy. Following Merton’s analysis 1936 of the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action and other latent function of social structures there are two of contemporary explanations not only for the functioning but also for the emergence of bureaucracy.
On the other hand, the study showed that bureaucracy is the place and of the product of vicious circles of bureaucratization as the attempt at countering on anticipated and dysfunctional consequences of bureaucratic structures led to an accentuation of the very characteristics, which have generated these dysfunctions. This is, for instance, the mechanism analyzed by Gouldner in his study of gypsum mine Colin the formal rules instituted to strengthen control of workers and to fight against their low work morale instead increases latter apathy, which management ties to counter by strengthening the surveillance of the workers and an increase in the rules on which the surveillance is based. This attempt in turn further increases workers apathy and passivity and so on. Crozier’s 1964 of the vicious Circle generated by impersonal rules and the resulting parallel power relations follow a similar pattern. He shows how proliferation of impersonal rules and viewing of elimination the uncertainties, which conditioned the satisfactory functioning of the organization increases the power of those contributions, is needed in order to cope with the remaining sources of uncertainty. The interpersonal Powell and dependence relations, which are generated around these uncertainties, and the unofficial and illegitimate privileges they produced would justify fears of personal power and dependence relations and therefore increase the pressure for future eliminating remains uncertain sees through centralization and new impersonal rules, which in turn will generate new parallel power relations and so forth.
On the other hand, the studies explain the bureaucratization of organizations by the latent function if the fields for their members. Gouldner 1954 distinguishes five latent functions of bureaucracy: impersonal rules allow for distance control, thus creating a filter and a protection by reducing impersonal relations, they legitimate size stations by the also rich trick the freedom of behavior of the members of hierarchy by codifying the possibilities of sanctions, they make possible apathy, i.e. behavior which restricts itself to the strict application of rules, and therefore they are a resource for bargaining with members of the hierarchy if they need some extra commitment, which they always do. Moreover, Gouldner shows that bureaucratization is an answer for the problems of succession in organizations in so far as impersonal rules can at least partially be substituted for the personal legitimacy, which the outgoing manager enjoyed what which the incoming manager lacks. Crozier’s 1964 balls a similar pattern but completes Gouldner interpretations with a broader theory: the bureaucratic mold of organization based on the perforation of written rules and produces is a way to avoid face-to-face relations and to escape the arbitrariness and uncertainties of direct power and dependence relations its latent function is a general Juan and relates to the necessity of taming and structure when the power and dependence relations which are at the heart of collective action and without which no cooperative endeavor is feasible. The essential merit of the seminal studies is to enable us to go beyond the sterile opposition inherited from the human relations traditions between, on the one hand, formal structure understood to be the incarnation of rationality as well as efficiency and on the other, the actual behavior of its members which result from their your rationality their affectivity and air conditioning by prior process of socialization. In their theorizing the rationality of formal structure is no more opposed to the affectivity of human behavior. On the contrary they interpret the structures as an answer to the cognitive limits and to the constraints stemming from human affectivity. The structures and the goals of organization can thus no more be understood as the expression of a logic with could be independent from and superior to, the relations between the members of an organization. They are created by the relations and draw their significance and their justification from them. In short, they are no longer an exogenous variable. They have been put back into the dealings between the members of an organization and become an endogenous result of them: they cannot be understood independently from the interaction and bargaining process for which they constitute only the framework. They therefore cannot escape the limits of rationality characterizing the human behavior which produces them and have to be analyzed together.
One can clearly see the thrust of this line of reasoning. Drawing on the studies of bureaucracy as well as the similar work of the Carnegie group around H. Simon 1958 on a behavioral theory of decision-making in organizations and on the analysis of collective action and public or private decision-making in the United States and Europe, it points toward a behavioral conceptualization of organization which links organizational behavior to the cognitive and relation capacities of their members. An organization in this view can be understood as an arena Cyert and March 1963 or as game structures Crozier and Friedberg 1977 and 1995 were participants are free to choose their behavior but within limits. The range of their choices is restricted but if they do not want to lose and the transaction with other participants they have to take into account the rules of the game which prevail and which determine the value of the resources of each participant and they are appropriate ways of using them in transaction with other participants. But within these limits which may be variable leave more or less leeway they can and will actually choose their behavior which can thus be understood as the way in which they adjust to the constraints of their situation as they see it while simultaneously trying to further their interests in whatever way they made to find them right using the resources and opportunities they perceive. Their behavior therefore cannot be considered as completely hazardous: it is the expression of a decision, which makes sense to the person who wished choosing and therefore is rational in the sense of H. Simon’s bounded rationality 1957. It is a reasonable adjustment by any participant to his or her situation; i.e. the network of interdependencies within which each participant is located an adjustment which is reasonable within the limits of his or her perception of the opportunities and constraints contained in this situation and his or her capacity to make use of the opportunities and constraints. Such an approach to organizations which emphasizes the constraints on organizations resulting from the limited but extendable cognitive and relational capacities of human beings naturally transcends the usual distinctions between the difference from organizations ((hospitals, firms, administration, etc.), and its heuristic value clearly is not limited to the analysis of formal organizations. Its target is in fact a much broader issue, which all kinds of organizations and all forms of collective actions have to solve; i.e. the problem of cooperation and coordination between actors Celine and continuing to pursue divergent interests. It is in a way center around a period of organizational phenomenon, which aims to understand how participants who continue to pursue divergent interests can nonetheless organize or accept to be organized in the pursuit of collective goals. Such an approach radically banalizes formal organizations, which in this view are only one of many possible forms of context of action, the characteristics of which constraints of collective action of the various participants. Organizations thus become artificial device, which help analyze and understand the general problem of human cooperation and coordination. Organizations will shown to becomes a way of theorizing about collective social action.
Efficiency and legitimacy as unifying forces shaping organizational forms, the other tradition to which we will now turn, has different starting points. It sees organization as structural forms the nature, characteristics, and dynamics of which have to be explained. Thus it starts with organizations and will focus on the variation of their forms: organizations are its basic unit of analysis and it will try to analyze the social dynamics on the inter-organizational, sectoral, or societal level in order to explain organizational form. These dynamics are traced to two distinct constraints: efficiency and legitimacy each of which distressed by a different standard of analysis. Efficiency is constraints stressed by structural contingency theory. This paradigm emerged in the middle of the 1960s and developed as a critical reaction to the theoretical and methodological perspective characteristics of organizational sociology of the 1950s. With regard to methodology, DVD and Dominic qualitative case study method was criticized because it provided merely a thick description but no grounds all generalizations or for the construction of a general theory of organizations. With regard to theory it was argued that the over emphasis on motivation and human relation characteristics of organizational thinking and so far had two consequences detrimental to our understanding of organizations: the role of structure and its influence on these relations had been downplayed, while, and this was seen as even more important, the context of an organization and the way it's characteristics condition and organizations structure will and functioning had been largely ignored. As a consequence structural contingency theory set out on a different program. Its focus was not on action or behavior within organizations but on organizations as structured entities will characteristics and change over time have to be explained using quantitative methods for the statistical study of samples of organizations in order to list, described, and if possible measured the influence which the main dimensions of an organizations context exert on its structures, it's functioning, and its performance. In other words this paradigm was concerned with two main questions: which dimensions of context affect an organizations (mainly structural) characteristics and to what extent? What is the influence of each of these characteristics on the performance of an organization? Structural contingency theory has been the dominant paradigm in the field of organizational studies from the middle of the 1960s up to the first half of the 1980s especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. It has generated and the men's effort to determine and measure the impact of the various dimensions of context. Let us mention in few particularly significant research programs. The influence of technology on the structure of organizations have been explored by J. Woodward (1958, 1965, 1970) and C. Perrow (1967 and 1970); the Aston group around D. Pugh (1963) and D. Hickson et al. (1969), as well as P. Blau in the United States 1971, have explored the link in particular between science among others, bless central variables and organizational structure. The impact of technical, economic, and social characteristics of an organizations environment on is structures and mode of functioning have been independently studied in the seminal work of Burns and Stalker in England 1961 and Lawrence and Lorsch in the United States 1967. Last, but not least, the more conceptual work of J. Thompson 1967, has also been very influential especially in regard to his conceptualization of what he called the ‘task environment’ of an organization. This approach is developed further by the population ecology of organizations, which builds on the seminal work of Aldrich 1979 as well as Hannan and Freemen 1977 and which aims at studying the contextual conditions which explain the emergence, the diffusion, and the disappearance of populations of organizations which share the same characteristics and which fit certain contextual conditions or ecological niches.
The main contributions of this quantitative and apparently more scientific approach to the study of organizations has been to demonstrate empirically the impossibility to find a single best way for structuring an organization. The good, i.e. the efficient structure, cannot be defined in general and beforehand. It is a function of the context and can only be defined after the different dimensions of this context have been recognized and taken into account in the organizational design. However this is very important contribution should never corrupt the theoretical and empirical shortcomings of the approach. Indeed according to the reasoning on which it is based content becomes a constrained because organizations are viewed as driven by the constraints of efficiency. Indeed so this reasoning goes organizations have to adjust to their contexts because their performance depends on this fit: in order to survive, they have to be efficient and, in order to beat efficient, they have to adjust to the demands of their contexts. Although there is certainly some truth in hypothesis, the empirical diversity of organizations with similar context has shown that structural contingency theory has vastly overestimated the unifying power of the constraint of efficiency. It has enlarged our understanding of the forces, which shaped organizations but in the process has overstated its case and has been proven wrong by imperial analysis.
Against the reductionism which pretends to analyze organizations from a purely technical or economic viewpoint (the pressure of constraint of efficiency), the Neo-institutional school in organizational analysis has promoted a more sociological perspective. It emphasizes the symbolic and normative dimensions of action in and between organizations, and stresses the role of their culture, might be a set of cognitive and normative frames to explain their mode of functioning. In other words, it puts forward a less intentional and rational perspective on organizations. In this view, organizations are neither the simple tools of their masters nor machines to maximize efficiency. They are also institutions, i.e. social worlds of theirs specific identities and culture, which, once created, take on a life of their own and develop their own medians which can never be reduced to mere considerations of efficiency. Sociological Neo-institutionalism builds on and tries to integrate several theoretical perspectives: the works of P. Selznick (1943 and 1949) or an organizations as institutions the work of H. Simon and his group at Carnegie on bounded rationality and cognitive frames, and the work of Berger and Luckmann on the process of institutionalization understood as processes of the social construction of reality.
First an organization is an institution because it structured by a set of cognitive, normative, and symbolic frames which shaped the behavior of its members by providing them with the tools necessary to observe and perceive the world around them to interpret and understand their counterparts behavior, and to construct their own interests as well as possible ways to further them. Through their structures -- formal (organizational forms, procedures, institutional symbols) as well as in formal (myths, rituals, social norms) -- organizational shape perceptions, calculations, reasoning, interpretations, and actions of their members by defining acceptable and legitimate behavior, i.e. behavior which is appropriate in the context of its culture. Second, no organization exists independently of other organizations which share the same characteristics and which together form and organizational field: e.g., the organizational field of universities, hospitals, schools, airlines, museums, etc. Such organizational feels have their producers and consumers, cognitive and normative frames, their power structures, control mechanisms. In short, they have their own institutional structure and their own dynamics, which are brought about the competition as well as interdependence between the constitutive organizations, process of professionalization, i.e. the establishment of cognitive and normative frames for the field, by government intervention and the like. The dynamics of the organizational fields exert unifying pressures on the individual organizations which in order to enhance their legitimacy, tend to adopt similar, if not identical, institutional forms and procedures. Third, while recognizing the importance of the technical and economic environment which was stressed by the structural contingency theory, the Neo -- institutionalists perspective interested mainly in the influence of the societal and institutional environment. The institutional environment concern to characteristics of the organizational field of which an organization is a part, and of the rules it has to follow if it wants to octane resources from the field and strengthen its legitimacy in it. The societal environment decimate the norms and values of modern societies which according to DiMaggio and Powell 1983 or Meyer (Meyer and Scott 1994), are characterized by processes of rationalization (to a certain extent this can be understood as the re-edition of Max Weber's process of the disenchantment of the world) and the diffusion of standardized norms as a consequence of increased intervention by states, professions, science, and organizational fields. Both institutional and societal environments constitute a sort of unifying matrix for organizations which have to conform to their pressures if they want to be excepted and thus able to drawl resources for their functioning. In short, Neo -- institutional perspective stresses the constraint of legitimacy, as opposed to the constraint of efficiency. Rational structures (formal organizations) do not dominate the modern world because they are efficient. They adopt rationalized institutional moors because this will enable them to octane the resources necessary for their successes and their survival as they increase their legitimacy in a white of culture environment (rational Western society and culture). Take together, the two strands of reasoning mentioned in the opening remarks provide a complete panorama of the forces shaping organizations: efficiency and legitimacy are the constraints, within which the games being played in and between organizations are embedded, but the games that depend upon the cognitive and relational capacities of individuals playing them are in turn mediating these constraints. The unifying force to stress by contingency theory and be neo-institutionalists perspective should therefore never be overestimated: they are themselves subject to differentiating pressures stemming from the cognitive and relational capacities of the humans who play games in contexts structured by constraints of efficiency and legitimacy. The relational and cognitive capacities are never determined and are never final: they are the motor of the infinite variance, which is observable in organizational life; they are the motor of innovation, which succeeds in destabilizing even the best establishment technical or institutional environments.