2009 Volume 30 Pages 123-136
The purpose of this paper is to make clear the general pattern of transition of social organization structure. Until now, two academic genealogies of "the concept of an organizational life cycle" and "transaction cost approach", have presented some models of development of individual organization by analyses of business organizations. In these papers, there is the common stream that organizations begin with small simple organizations, form centralized hierarchies, and decentralize. This stream can apply to the transition of total society structure. We paid attention to this affinity, contrasted with individual organization and total society, and built the total schema of transition of social organization structure by the analysis of Japanese civilization history. Japanese civilization history has experienced three cycles of transition. First cycle comprises decentralized society of the former of the Ancient Ages and unified state of the later of the Ancient Ages. Second cycle comprises decentralized society of the Middle Ages and unified state of the Edo Ages, and is "armed lord period". Third cycle comprises decentralized society of the evening of the Edo Ages and unified state of the Modern Ages and the Present Ages, and is "nation-state period". As a result of the analysis of Japanese civilization history on the periodization above, we considered that the pattern of transition of social organization structure can be interpreted by "swinging model" of "centralization and decentralization" or "integration and dispersion", and could be drew the total schema as the following. 1. dispersed state (=unorganized stage) 2. confederacy form (=network organization) -1. headless confederacy form -2. chiefdom confederacy form -3. feudalistic confederacy form (transitional period from network to hierarchy) 3. integration form (=hierarchy organization) -1. centralized integration form -2. decentralized integration form -3. practical disrupt state (=evening of hierarchy organization) 4. re-formation of confederacy (=network organization) -1. reorganization from upper side (transitional period from hierarchy to network) -2. formation of confederacy by lower side (switch to next cycle)
