Sociology of Organizations

Mary Godwyn teaches in the History and Society Division at Babson College. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brandeis University. She has lectured at Harvard University and taught at Brandeis University and Lasell College, where she was also the Director of the Donahue Institute for Public Values. Godwyn focuses on social theory as it applies to issues of inequality in formal and informal organizations. She studies entrepreneurship as a vehicle for the economic and political advancement of marginalized populations, especially women and minorities. She has published in journals such as Symbolic Interaction (University of California Press), Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (Elsevier), and the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Her books include Minority Women Entrepreneurs: How Outsider Status Can Lead to Better Business Practices (2011), co-authored with Donna Stoddard, D.B.A., published by Greenleaf Publishing and Stanford University Press, and Sociology of Organizations: Structures and Relationships (2011), co-authored with Jody Hoffer Gittell, published by SAGE Publications/Pine Forge Press. Godwyn served on the executive committee of the Critical Management Studies Division of the Academy of Management from 2008-2011, and was also the 2008 winner of the Dark Side Case Competition for her case "Hugh Connerty and Hooters: What is Successful Entrepreneurship?" Her research has been funded by the Coleman Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Harold S. Geneen Charitable Trust and the Babson College Board of Research Fund. In addition to scholarship and teaching, Godwyn consults to colleges and universities about the integration of entrepreneurship and liberal arts programs. Jody Hoffer Gittell teaches human resource management and organizational theory at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She serves as Director of the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative, and Acting Director of the MIT Leadership Center. Gittell's research explores how coordination by front-line workers contributes to quality and efficiency outcomes in service settings, with a particular focus on the airline and healthcare industries. She has developed a theory of relational coordination, proposing that highly interdependent work is most effectively coordinated through relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect, and demonstrating how organizations can support (or undermine) relational coordination through the design of their work systems. Gittell is the author of dozens of articles and chapters, and several books that translate her findings for practitioners. Her books include The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance (McGraw-Hill, 2003), Up in the Air: How the Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging Their Employees (Cornell University Press, 2009), High Performance Healthcare: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve Quality, Efficiency and Resilience (McGraw-Hill, 2009), and most recently Sociology of Organizations: Structures and Relationships (co-authored with Mary Godwyn, Ph.D.) (SAGE, 2011). Gittell won the Outstanding Young Scholar of the Year Award in 2004 from the Labor and Employment Relations Association, a Best Book Award for Industry Studies in 2005 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a Best Paper Award in 2008 from the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management, and the Douglas McGregor Award for Best Paper of the Year in 2008 from the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Before joining the faculty at Brandeis University, Gittell received her PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management and taught at the Harvard Business School.

The sociological study of organizations encompasses both planned and formal organizations as well as spontaneous and informal ones. Sociologists examine organizations with attention to structure and objectives, interactions among members and among organizations, the relationship between the organization and its environment and the social significance or social meaning of the organization. The ways of defining and examining organizations vary depending on the theoretical emphasis.

IntroductionPART I. THE RELATIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL FORMBusiness as an Integrative Unity - Mary Parker FollettMechanistic and Organic Systems of Management - Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker Markets, Bureaucracies and Clans - William G. OuchiNeither Market Nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization - Walter Powell Organizational Social Capital and Employment Practices - Carrie Leana and Harry Van BurenDoing Your Job and Helping Your Friends: Universalistic Norms About Obligations to Particular Others - Carol HeimerSocial Exchange and Micro Social Order - Edward J. Lawler, Shane R. Thye and Jeongkoo YoonPart II. THE BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONAL FORMBureaucracy - Mary Parker FollettCoordination - Mary Parker FollettThe Horizontal Dimension in Bureaucracy - Henry Landsberger The Social Embeddedness of Labor Markets and Cognitive Processes - Michael Piore Defining the Post-Bureaucratic Type - Charles Heckscher Two Types of Bureaucracy: Enabling and Coercive - Paul Adler and Brian Borys Organized Dissonance: Feminist Bureaucracy as Hybrid Form - Karen AshcraftPART III. COORDINATION OF WORKThe Process of Control - Mary Parker Follett Organizations - James March and Herbert SimonOrganization Design: An Information Processing View - Jay GalbraithInput Uncertainty and Organizational Coordination in Hospital Emergency Units - Linda ArgoteCollective Mind in Organizations: Heedful Interrelating on Flight Decks - Karl Weick and Karlene RobertsCoordination in Fast Response Organizations - Samer Faraj and Yin XiaoA Relational Model of How High-Performance Work Systems Work - Jody Hoffer Gittell, Rob Seidner and Julian WimbushPART IV. AUTONOMY AND CONTROLFundamentals of Scientific Management - Frederick Winslow Taylor The Basis of Authority - Mary Parker Follett Theory Y: The Integration of Individual and Organizational Goals - Douglas McGregor Toward an Economic Model of the Japanese Firm - Masahiko Aoki Work Organization, Technology and Performance in Customer Service and Sales - Rose Batt Connective Leadership: Female Leadership Styles in the 21st Century Workplace - Jean Lipman-BlumenTrust and Influence in Combat: An Interdependence Model - Patrick Sweeney, Vaida Thompson and Hart BlantonPART V. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTUREWhat is Culture? - Edgar A. ScheinThe Organizational Culture Wars: A Struggle for Intellectual Dominance - Joanne Martin and Peter Frost Moral Economy and Cultural Work - Mark BanksRepresenting Blue: Representative Bureaucracy and Racial Profiling in the Latino Community - Vicky M. Wilkins and Brian N. Williams This Place Makes Me Proud to be a Woman': Theoretical Explanation for Success in Entrepreneurship Education for Low-Income Women - Mary Godwyn Hospitals as Cultures of Entrapment: Re-Analysis of the Bristol Royal Infirmary - Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe Representative Bureaucracy and Policy Tools: Ethnicity, Student Discipline and Representation in Public Schools - Christine H. Roch, David W. Pitts and Ignaciao NavarroPART VI. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICTCapital: A Critique of Political Economy - Karl MarxConstructive Conflict - Mary Parker FollettOrganizational Conflict; Concepts and Models - Louis PondyMarx, Globalization and Alienation: Received and Underappreciated Wisdoms - W. Peter ArchibaldRacial Inequality in the Workplace: How Critical Management Studies Can Inform Current Approaches - Brenda Johnson Mythicizing and Reification in Entrepreneurial Discourse: Ideology-Critique of Entrepreneurial Studies - John O. Ogbor PART VII. DIVERSITY WITHIN ORGANIZATIONSWomen's Careers in Static and Dynamic Organizations - Elin Kvande and Bente Rasmussen We Have to Make a MANagement Decision: Challenger and the Dysfunctions of Corporate Masculinity - Mark MaierJust One of the Guys: How TransMen Make Gender Visible at Work - Kristen Schilt The Emperor has no Clothes: Rewriting 'Race in Organizations - Stella NkomoThe Colonizing Consciousness and Representations of the Other: A Postcolonial Critique of the Discourse of Oil - Anshuman PrasadThe Disclosure Dilemma for Gay Men and Lesbians: 'Coming Out' at Work - Kirstin H. Griffin and Michelle R. HeblIdentification of Work Environments and Employers Open to Hiring and Accommodating People with Disabilities - Dennis Gilbride, Robert Stensrud, David Vandergoot and Kristie GoldenPART VIII. ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND CHANGESingle-Loop and Double-Loop Models in Research on Organizational Decision-Making - Chris ArgyrisThe Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organization Fields - Paul DiMaggio and Walter PowellOrganizational Learning - Barbara Levitt and James March The Local and Variegated Nature of Learning in Organizations: A Group-Level Perspective - Amy EdmondsonPractical Pushing: Creating Discursive Space in Organizational Narratives - Joyce K. Fletcher, Lotte Bailyn and Stacy Blake BeardOperating Room: Relational Spaces and Micro-institutional Changes in Surgery - Katherine Kellogg PART IX. NEW TECHNOLOGY, SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMERGING COMMUNITIESConstructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality: Playing in the MUDs - Sherry TurkleLink, Search, Interact: The Co-Evolution of NGOs and Interactive Technology - Jonathan Bach and David Stark Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence - Joanna C. Dunlap and Patrick R. Lowenthal E-mail in Government: Not Post-Bureaucratic but Late Bureaucratic Organizations - Albert Jacob Meijer On-line Dating in Japan: A Test of Social Information Processing Theory - James Farrer and Jeff Gavin Online Organization of the LGBT Community in Singapore - Joe Phua