Peter Michael Blau | Biography

Peter Michael Blau, a renowned author and professor, was born in Vienna in 1918, to Theodor I. Blau and Bertha Selka Blau. He left Austria in 1939 just prior to the outbreak of World War II and came to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1943. Blau received a bachelor of arts at Elmhurst College in 1942, and then served as an intelligence agent in the U.S. Army until the end of World War II. Afterward he returned to his studies, receiving a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1952; he later was awarded a masters of arts from Cambridge University in 1966. Blau's first marriage to Zena Smith in 1948 produced one daughter, Pamela Lisa; he also had a daughter, Reva Theresa, with his second wife, Judith Rae Fritz, whom he married in 1968.

Blau's career in academia began as an instructor, first at Wayne State University (1949-51) and then at Cornell University (1951-53). In 1953 he was appointed as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, where he rose to the rank of full professor and remained until 1970. While at this prestigious university, Blau began his work in the field of organizational theory, gaining a considerable reputation from his books, such as The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (1955) and Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (co-written with W. Richard Scott, 1962).

In The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, Blau challenged the prevailing literature that focused on organizational oligarchy and displacement from the original organizational goals. In his study of two government agencies, Blau concluded that a rigid bureaucracy does not necessarily emerge once an organization has achieved its original goals, or once these goals have become undesirable. Instead, he observed a process of "succession of goals" by which organizations adopt new goals.

While at the University of Chicago, Blau also launched his important work in the areas of exchange theory and occupational structure. His Exchange and Power in Social Life (1964) proposed a theory of "social exchange" under which social life and relationships are governed by reactions from other people. According to Blau's theory, "...reciprocated benefactions create social bonds among peers, whereas unreciprocated ones produce differentiation of status." The American Occupational Structure (1967), co-written with Otis Dudley Duncan, was an empirical study that won for Blau the American Sociology Association's Sorokin Award.

In 1970 Blau accepted an appointment as the Quetelet Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, where he remained through 1988. While at Columbia, he published numerous works that continued his exploration of organizational and social structure. These include: The Structure of Organizations (with R.A. Schoenherr, 1971); The Organization of Academic Work (1973); On the Nature of Organizations (1974); Approaches to the Study of Social Structure (editor, 1975); Inequality and Heterogeneity (1977); Continuities in Structural Inquiry (edited with R.K. Merton, 1981); and Crosscutting Social Circles (with J.E. Schwartz, 1984).

Blau left Columbia in 1988 to become the Robert Broughton Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, a position he still held in 2000. In 1994 he published the book that synthesized his long career in developing sociology theory, Structural Contexts of Opportunities. The American Association of University Presses described this book as one in which Blau, focusing on both the influences of population structures and interpersonal relationships, "has brought together these concerns to form a wide ranging theory of population structures and their influence on social life--from opportunities in job choice and social mobility, to organizational participation and intergroup relations."

During his distinguished career, Blau also became a member and officer of many professional associations, and received various prestigious awards. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1975 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1980. He served on the board of directors of the Social Sciences Research Council (1966-69) and as president of the American Sociological Association for a term (1973-74). In addition to the Sorokin Award, Blau also was a recipient of the Commonwealth Award (1981) and the Irwin Award (1986).