The Four Competing Sociological Theories Essays - Sociology

The Four Competing Sociological Theories Essays - Sociology The Four Competing Sociological Theories Name Course The Four Competing Sociological Theories Resources in the world have been distributed unequally. There are some people who get more resources than others, yet everyone needs resources for their daily activities. In explaining this social scholars and sociologist have come up with different four competing for sociological theories that try to explain why there is so much resource inequality in the world. The following is an essay that will compare and contrast the strength and weakness of the following theories; market-oriented, dependency theory, world systems theory, and states centered theory. The essay will conclude by giving a choosing and justifying which theory bests explains this phenomenon According to market-oriented theory, an organization will work to meet the needs of their customers. The strategies and the products developed by an organization will focus on this desire for customer satisfaction. The major strength or this theory is that it pleases and holds the customers to being loyal towards the organization. Also, when an organization uses this theory, it will be able to respond to the demand for the consumer need. The theory allows an organization to streamline its needs to suit the customers. The weaknesses of this theory are that for an organization to effectively implement it will require a lot of capital investment and marketing research which might not favor SMEs. An increase in customer value will call for an increase in the cost of production which will reduce the profits made by an organization. This has empowered developed nations and undermined the capability of developing nat ions thus the global inequality (Menzies, 2015). State-centered theory, on the other hand, is a theory that focuses on the role of a government in civil society and community development. It is a political theory that expects the government to develop policies that will f oster development in its states (Menzies, 2015). Though this theory emerged as a response to Marxists the theory manages to explain how government can influence society. The way a government distributes resources will account for the global inequality at large. The advantage of this theory is that the governments oversee resources, and the disadvantage of this approach is that it gives the society a little role in resource distribution. The government will be accountable for how resources ar e distributed in their locality (Ritzer , 2014 ). The third theory is the world systems theory which argues that the world economy is an economic block where some nations are exploited on the behalf of others. The theory initially developed by Wallerstein developed a global map explaining how some nations are the cores and dominant economic units, the peripheral and the semi-peripheral nations. The weakness of this theory is that it does not account for the dynamic state of world economy and the issue of globalization. The strength of this theory is that it acts as a guideline towards global economic development. The theory is an interdependence theory explaining how depe ndency is not a one-way process (Menzies, 2015). The final theory and the most relevant theory in explaining global inequality are the dependant theory. This theory explains how resources from developing nations flow into developed nations. The developed nations in the Far East, Europe, and America are exploiting the developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America for resources. The strengths that are associated with this theory are that the theory analyzes the inequality gap that is there between poor nations and developed nations and seeks for the best way to bridge the gap. The other strength of this theory is that it breaks the political barrier between nations in explaining global inequality. The weakness of this theory is that it does not look at the internal challenges a nation might be going through in development process (Menzies, 2015). References Menzies, K. (2015). Sociological Theory in Use . Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Ritzer, G. (2014). Sociological theory . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.