Crozier, Michel (born 1922)

Founder of French organisational sociology with his doctoral thesis of 1963 (Le Phénomène bureaucratique) and his research at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CNRS) which he founded in 1961. A student of Friedmann, he renewed Weberian inspiration with a synthesis strongly marked by American works (Simon Gouldner). A graduate in law and arts (sociology), he was director of research at the CNRS and notably professor at Harvard and fellow at the Palo Alto Centre (Stanford). Member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, his publications include Le Phénomène Bureaucratique, La Société Bloquée, L’Acteur et le système (in collaboration with Erhard Friedberg), On ne Change pas la Société par Décret and Le Mal Américain.