By DANIEL J. GALLAGHER

Paul Leinberger and Bruce Tucker. The New Individualists: The Generation after the Organization Man. New York Harper Collins, 1991. Pp. 454 with notes and index. $24.95 (cloth).

Thirty-five years after William H. Whyte Jr. published the landmark study The Organization Man, Paul Leinberger and Bruce Tucker have extended Whyte's work by examining the lives of the original organization men as well as their sons and daughters. Whyte cooperated by granting access to his research notes. In the final section of Whyte's book, he paid particular attention to Park Forest, the middle-class Illinois suburb which he described as "... virtually a controlled sample of organization people." Interestingly, Paul Leinberger, coauthor of The New Individualists, is the son of one of Whyte's original Park Forest organization men.

Whereas the organization men studied by Whyte benefited from the growing national economy of the late 1940s and the 1950s, their adult children have had to contend with a flat or slow-growth economy. These baby boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964, ". . . have been conditioned by a history of childhood affluence and a maturity of diminishing expectations." Labeled "new individualists," they have redefined individualism in psychological terms — that is, in terms of self-fulfillment, self-actualization and personal growth. As evidence for this redefinition Leinberger and Tucker cite: ". . . the appearance of cults; the growth of psychotherapy; the flood of psychological self-help literature; widespread interest in Eastern religions; the national obsessions with diet and exercise; and, most recently, the rise of the all-purpose codependency movement." Hence, for this generation the meaning of individualism has been transformed from economic and political to psychological terms.

The most interesting and compelling reading in the book comes in the first several chapters. Here two representative organizational families are examined, the Myerses and the Harrisons. Both families were original subjects of Whyte's research and were at that time residents of Park Forest. One can definitely see the generational differences in career paths, values and lifestyles by contrasting the offspring of these original organizational men to their parents.

Especially prominent are the changing norms regarding gender roles. For instance, the three Harrison daughters have careers ranging from artistic (in dance) to academic (in the humanities) to entrepreneurial (in the computer industry), whereas their mother was a homemaker. All three daughters have experienced ups and downs in their careers and their personal lives.

A second notable difference between the generations is the propensity of the baby boomers to switch jobs and even careers. For example, in the two families portrayed, the organization offspring did a bit of job-hopping, but the patriarchs of the family originally studied by Whyte spent almost their entire working lives with a single organization: Ray Myers became general counsel of Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust; Dave Harrison spent his career climbing the corporate ladder at General Motors. In any case, today large organizations do not offer such job security (witness the recent white-collar layoffs at GM and IBM). The offspring of the organization men often led rather nomadic childhood lives as their fathers' careers necessitated periodic relocation. As a result, they show little attachment to the communities where they now live as adults.

Another trait that characterizes these baby boomers is ". . . the astonishing degree to which the artist, however vaguely conceived, functions as the overriding occupational model for members of the generation, even for those whose work bears little resemblance to artistic endeavor. . . ." Whether they are businessmen, entrepreneurs, aging hippies, teachers or yuppies, their occupational ideal is the artist (or as stated in the book, their "fantasies" of the artist).

In trying to explain The New Individualists, the authors draw on a wide range of sources. The jargon they use, such as "the authentic self and "the artificial person," is awkward at times, and some of their conclusions seem tenuous. Leinberger and Tucker must contend with the diversity of the baby boomers. Categorizing them is more difficult than categorizing their parents was for Whyte.

Readers would profit from reviewing Whyte's classic study before reading The New Individualists. Those familiar with Chicago will find the discussion of Park Forest in both works to be fascinating. As an aside, Whyte still thinks the organization man is alive and well. In any case, The New Individualists is provocative because it makes the reader reflect on how the values and lifestyles of the grandchildren of the original organization men will differ from those of their parents and grandparents.

Daniel J. Gallagher is associate professor of business administration at Sangamon State University and an associate editor of Illinois Issues.

July 1992/Illinois Issues/25