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Social Actors And Organizations As One Working Unit

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Blumer lastly notes that although many methodologies observe large social actors and organizations as one working unit, this does not allow the understanding of how the organization functions. Researchers should look at the individuals within the organization to see how those individuals fit together and how they interact. The interactions of the people within the organization paint a picture of how the organization functions and makes its decisions. Blumer sums up his essay perfectly by saying “respect the empirical world and organize a methodological stance to reflect that respect” (Blumer 1986, p. 60). Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism As with any theory there are critics of symbolic interactionism. One weakness of symbolic …show more content…

His reasoning behind why he believes this is a bit confusing and does not fully explain why this data is unreliable. He does explain that data created from a recreated world is not useable which is understandable because it is not being taken from the real world, but he does not fully explain why quantitative data taken from the real world is inherently wrong. He dismisses any validity it may hold. This is also confusing for the reader because he is very vocal about testability. He sees testability as important but throws out research types with clear testability. Many believe that Blumer’s symbolic interactionism lacks hard evidence and testability. A person interprets a symbol and acts how they choose to act. This lacks the ability to be tested incorrect. Because this theory allows for the actor to respond in any way they want, then the theory can never be proven wrong meaning there is no testability (Melzer, Petros, and Reynolds 1975). Skidmore (1975) points out that Blumer’s theory does not account for why an actor will make the same choice in a given situation. This paper allows for the assumption that every time an actor faces a situation they consciously interpret it and then make a choice on how to respond. This does not account for the unconscious acts and feelings that go into an action. Some actions are made without a full understanding of why

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