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Groups and Organizations
Groups and Organizations
The essay aims at analyzing the sociological perspectives of Initech office from the film ‘Office Space’. The essay makes reference to the movie for analyzing sociological perspective in terms of identifying groups, in- groups, out-group, dyad, triad, primary and secondary groups, reference group and conformity. The movie is based on the Initech Office, where Peter Gibson is employed. Peter and his colleagues Milton, Samir and Michael are office drones and dislike the dullness of the office, as many of their colleagues do. The primary characters in the movie change their attitude toward the work, since the occupational therapist which they used to admire dies. Peter who is the primary character is so uncaring and employs ill- attitude toward his tasks. When he visits office in the weekends for official routine, he spends his time playing games. Another thing he finds interesting is changing office décor. His company consider this behavior of him as peculiar in nature and promotes him to the Managerial level. At the company, the motivation level is not encouraging, for this reason the employees don’t take proud of associating themselves with the company.
As ‘group’ in sociology is composed of individuals who are related to one another that makes them codependent ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"j6MsbKtc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Gieryn)","plainCitation":"(Gieryn)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":338,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/9RM9DY2Z"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/9RM9DY2Z"],"itemData":{"id":338,"type":"article-journal","title":"A space for place in sociology","container-title":"Annual review of sociology","page":"463–496","volume":"26","issue":"1","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Gieryn","given":"Thomas F."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2000"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Gieryn). The group is actually the class of social entities who interact with each other. In ‘Office Space’, the handful of individuals in the software company represents a group. The group in the movie is limited to the characters of Gibson, Milton, Samir, and Micheal. They are interdependent upon each other, so from the sociological perspective they represent a group. ‘In- group’ in sociology is defined as group with which one like to relate to, whereas the ‘out-group’ is the bunch of people, which one doesn’t like getting related to. For Peter, the official environment is out-group, with which he doesn’t like to relate himself too. His attitude toward the official routine suggests this aspect. Similarly, with his girlfriend, who is cheating on him, is his in-group. Although she is cheating upon him he is comfortable to interact with her.
A dyad is the smallest possible group consisting of two people ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"73w0U8cq","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Gieryn)","plainCitation":"(Gieryn)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":338,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/9RM9DY2Z"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/9RM9DY2Z"],"itemData":{"id":338,"type":"article-journal","title":"A space for place in sociology","container-title":"Annual review of sociology","page":"463–496","volume":"26","issue":"1","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Gieryn","given":"Thomas F."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2000"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Gieryn), therefore the group of Peter and Michael is a dyad, as they interact most in the office. Their interaction in the office premises and their dependence upon each other to meet the official task conform to the sociological perspective of a dyad. Different from dyad, triad is a group of three people in sociology, therefore, other than Peter and Michael, Samir adds up in their group to make it a triad. The primary group in sociology consist of members who share close, personal and enduring relations. In the movie, since the family of Peter Gibson is much portrayed, therefore, it is the example of the primary group. Different to primary group, secondary group is the social group to which one doesn’t like to relate to. It is less personal in nature. The employee group in the office is an example of secondary group.
As in sociology, a reference group is a group to which one compares itself to. At many times in the IT Company, there has been a comparative analysis. Therefore, the comparative analysis part indicates the reference group. Finally, commodity is what satisfy human needs of any kind. As Peter Gibson is satisfied by changing the apparent settings, therefore it shows the aspect of commodity in the ‘Office Space’. This is how a comic movie relates much to the aspects of sociology. The environment and the management linked to the characters how that how an organizational setting conform too many aspect of the sociology. Since the movie talks about a group of people and the organizational settings therefore, the sociological conditions are met in the movies.
Works Cited:
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Gieryn, Thomas F. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 26, no. 1, 2000, pp. 463–496.
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