s bureaucracy, which regulates and/or enforces social norms and distributes corresponding social rights (Weber, 1946, p. 196).
With his description of bureaucracy Weber reaches the concept of social roles and interaction of various social strata, which is today identified as socioeconomic status, or SES. Now of course not all bureaucracies, still less all groups, have the force of the state behind them to manage the content of group structure. Besides, as Neher states, in any organizational unit, there is the formal (scientific) structure, plus, right beside it, an informal structure, defined by the "social links that people develop [and that] undergo continuous change as new friendships are made and as new people enter and leave" (Neher, 1997, p. 155).
Although it is possible to differentiate between social-oriented and task-oriented groups, almost all groups organize around a common purpose, even if that purpose is to express social identity. It is also the case that an individual may be a member of a group (e.g., a left-handed person, a cardiac patient) without organizing himself around any administrative apparatus.
Still, group identity may foster certain kinds of behavior and communication patterns that indicate the particular social role that a group member has either assumed or been assigned. One conclusion (Johnson & Johnson, 2000, p. 38) is that this means groups are living things, functioning as they do because of the behavior fostered by the individuals who have various social roles. The quality and depth of interaction in a group--what Johnson and Johnson refer to as group dynamics instead of group structure--are fundamental to understanding how it behaves, especially if a group has a purpose and if it forms in order to accomplish purposes that individuals cannot achieve by themselves. That implies that a big feature of group structure is interdependence, even though some group members may be leaders and others foll...