Question One:
The organizational isomorphism in the fast food industry formed because of a plethora of factors. First of all, the opening of the American interstate system provided a substantial avenue by which companies could get on the ground floor of the growing population of American road travelers. Using Ford-esque mass-production techniques, McDonald’s demonstrated an effective means by which food could be created quickly to feed hungry travelers more efficiently; the self-serve model allows fast food companies to only focus on the production of food, as their customers handle the distribution to keep costs low.
Question Two:
The organizational field of the beef industry is highly organized in such a way that beef and hamburger prices can be kept extremely low. The oligopoly-based structure of the beef industry comes from the dichotomy between a large number of cattle sellers, and a low number of buyers (because the beef industry is monopolized by a select few large corporations like Conagra, IBP, XL and National Beef). While the farmers and meat packers have a mutual dependence on each other for supply and processing, the meat packers carry the majority of the power. Because there are so many ranchers and so few processors, the processors hold the negotiation power as they are the only means by which ranchers can sell their meat.
These factors allow the few meat packers in charge of the industry can engage in price fixing without much resistance or suspicion. This situation also creates a captive supply that allows meat packers to flood the market with meat in order to lower prices. Unfortunately, these cattle ranchers can no longer trust the prices they are being given for their beef, as supply and demand no longer enters into pricing. These few meat packers can simply set the prices for whatever they want and demand what they like from the ranchers (or else there is no one to sell their beef to). Since ranchers tend to be individualistic in thinking and encourage competition, there is not as much of a chance to gather collective action and force prices up.
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Question Three:
a) With bureaucratic conservatism, all efforts were made toward maintaining the apparatus by which Big Business and Big Labor operated; the bureaucracy was to be maintained. In many ways, this disrupted social justice, as low pay and unsafe working conditions were merely some of the things labor unions struggled under with this philosophy of bureaucratic conservatism. These unions began to identify themselves as part of a larger social movement, with a broader human rights agenda representing social justice. To that end, other union members started to rebel against the conservative leaders of their unions and worked to revitalize the values of said unions.
b) Some of the most deeply entrenched obstacles to social change the union leaders faced included resistance from members and staff who were reticent to change the existing nature of the organization out of a sense of convenience. The leaders were so used to the structure that allowed them to take advantage of union workers that social change became difficult to accomplish. Internal political crises can also occur within labor unions, which can occur whenever a strike goes wrong, or a local becomes mismanaged; these usually result in leadership change. Contract provisions were other barriers to social change, because of the unclear contract language being used that can often leave members disenfranchised. All of these factors were things that made employers entrench themselves further in existing values instead of allowing social change to occur.
