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What has happened in Russian organizations during "perestroika" and why everything, that previously gave rise to hope and seemed rational, turned out to be so dull, confused and unsusceptible to scientific analysis? In the former Soviet Union the activity of every organization was strictly determined by the state plan. The country's economy was like a giant fleet following one course and sensitively orienting to the signals from the flagship. Under these conditions the work of organizational psychologists boiled down to the solution of the routine "marine services" problems (work motivation, leadership, personnel selection, work rationalization, group dynamics and efficiency, organizational culture etc.) The question "Where and what for does the ship float?" never came even into the captain's mind. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union too much things have changed to the Russian organizational ships. Having lost the flagship of the state planning the powerful fleet has dissipated in the stormy ocean of transitional period, and all of a sudden it has turned out that the traditional concept of organization as "forethought coordinated social unit with definite boundaries, functioning on relatively stable basis for achieving the joint goal"[624], does not unveil the most important moment in organizational functioning — its contradictory nature. It has become obvious that the organizational unity — is just an illusion, and if the organization is plotting her course on its own account, plenty of contradictions threaten not only its efficiency, but even its survival. On the surface these contradictions can reveal themselves in the most unexpected and grotesque forms and then all of a sudden disappears the expensive production of the plant, stocks of a powerful factory are sold out for peanuts, workers and engineers are working month by month without hope to get their ratty salaries... In the context of these acute contradictions the efforts of organizational psychologists to solve the traditional psychological problems look like ambulant treatment of a serious decease. All this makes extremely actual the developing of new approaches that can extend the possibilities of psychology in analysis and solution of real organizational problems. The book presents one of such attempts. It is suggested to treat any organization first of all as a contradictory process of interaction between people, sharing different or even opposite goals, interests, needs and ideas. Psychologically this contradiction reveals itself in two contrary tendencies: centripetal and centrifugal. The first tendency jogs an individual to organization, cooperation and search for joint goals and interests. Within this tendency the organization comes out for the individual as an instrument for his needs satisfaction: working for the company and following its goals he/she gets not only the means for life, but prospects for well being and development, as well. The second — forces an individual to avoid the organizational pressure. The necessity to comply with organizational requirements and inability to follow exceptionally his/her plans and desires inevitably evoke on his/her part the protest and reluctance to enter the organization. — 486 —
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