• DOI:10.2307/2390703
• Corpus ID: 144897105

Micropolitics: Mechanisms of Institutional Change

@article{Burns1961MicropoliticsMO,
  title={Micropolitics: Mechanisms of Institutional Change},
  author={Tom R. Burns},
  journal={Administrative Science Quarterly},
  year={1961},
  volume={6},
  pages={257}
}

• T. Burns
• Published 1 December 1961
• Economics
• Administrative Science Quarterly

While the corporation is hardly a microcosm of the state, study of the internal politics of universities and business concerns may develop insights contributing to the understanding of political action in general. Corporations are co-operative systems assembled out of the usable attributes of people. They are also social systems within which people compete for advancement; in so doing they may make use of others. Behavior is identified as political when others are made use of as resources in competitive situations. Material, or extrahuman, resources are also socially organized. Additional resources, resulting from innovation or new types of personal commitments alter the prevailing equilibrium and either instigate or release political action. Such action is a mechanism of social change. Tom Burns is a reader, Social Sciences Research Center, University of Edinburgh.