Rationality and Equity in Professional Networks: Gender and Race as Factors in the Stratification of Interorganizational Systems

Abstract

The organizational principles of rationality and equity account for the bureaucratic leveling effect on social differences posited by Weber. An inference from this framework, that organizational systems will neither create nor reinforce inequality based on gender or race, was examined with data provided by the members of six multiagency social service delivery systems. The dependent variable was a measure of access to the networks of interorganizational exchange that tied together the agencies in these systems. This measure, called centraliy, did not vary by race or gender. However, an analysis of first-and second-order interaction effects indicated that the combinations of investments and contributions that were predictive of centrality were very different for white men, white women, nonwhite men, and nonwhite women. A complicated process of negotiation for resource and advantages was indicated that is not easily reconciled with deductions from classical organizational theory.