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Sociology of Organisations - Extensive Literature summary + Lecture notes - 2021

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Hello, in this document you can find a comprehensive summary of the literature of the course Sociology of Organisations and clear lecture notes. Very good luck with learning!

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Week 1 3
1. Lectures 3
1.2 Lecture 1 - Strands 3
1.3 Lecture 2 - Strands 6
2. Literature 9
2.1 Watson Chapter 2 9
2.2 Watson Chapter 3 14
2.3 Video Durkheim 18
2.4 Video’s Marx 18
2.5 Taylor, F. W. - The principles of scientific management 20
Week 2 22
1. Lectures 22
1.1 Lecture 3 - A history of work and organization 22
1.2 Lecture 4 - Organisational structure 25
2. Literature 29
2.1 Watson Chapter 4 - Industrial capitalism and change 29
2.2 Watson Chapter 5 - Work organisations 33
2.3 Smith Chapter 1 40
2.4 Weber - Bureaucracy 40
2.5 Mintzberg - Organization design: fashion or fit? 41
2.6 Burns & Stalker - Mechanistic and organic systems 44
2.6 Video’s 46
2.6.1 The invisible hand 46
2.6.2 The division of labour 46
2.6.3 The three ideal types of authorisation 46
2.6.4 Rationalisation 47
2.6.5 The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism 47
Week 3 49
1. Lectures 49
1.1 Lecture 5 - Occupations and professionalism 49
2. Literature 52
2.1 Watson chapter 7 - Occupations and social organisations (204 - 213) 52
2.2 Watson chapter 8 - Aspects of occupations 54



1

, 2.3 Freidson - Labor markets and careers 58
Week 4 62
1. Lectures 62
1.1 Lecture 6 - Organisational culture 62
2. Literature 64
2.1 Hatch & Schultz - The dynamics of organizational identity 64
Week 6 67
1. Lectures 67
2. Literature 72
2.1 Fang - Asian management research needs more self-confidence: Reflection on
Hofstede (2007) and beyond 72
2.2 Watch; reshoring 75
Week 7 77
1. Lecture 77
2. Literature 81
2.1 Watson chapter 6 (171 - 194) 81
2.2 Zuboff - Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information
civilization 86
2.3 Bovens & Zouridis - From street-level to system-level bureaucracies: How
information and communication technology is transforming administrative discretion and
constitutional control 91
Week 8 96
1. Lectures 96
2. Literature 98
2.1 Dobbin & Kalev - Why diversity programs fail 98
2.2 Rangan, Chase & Karim - The truth about CSR 100
Week 9 103
1. Lectures 103
2. Literature 109
2.1 Watson chapter 9 - Culture, work orientations and the experience of working 109
114
2.2 Sennet - Quality-driven work 114




2

,Week 1

1. Lectures

1.2 Lecture 1 - Strands
Methodological pluralism
Six strands of theory:
1. Managerial - psychologist
2. Durkheim-human-relation
3. Interactionist-negotiated-order
4. Social-action-Weber
5. Marxian-labour
6. poststructuralist - postmodernism

You can see them as different perspectives on organisations.

Managerial - psychologist strand
A. Scientific management
Taylor was one of the main thinkers
● Decomposition of work to enhance efficiency
● Separation of thinking (employer) from doing (employee); so the manager
instructs the workers.
● Deskilling (simple tasks and complex control structures)
● Neoclassical economic perspective on human behavior
● Incentive pay systems
● Man as homo calculus (economic animal); men have no intrinsic connection
with the work
● Coleman’s boat: micro level
● Managers really tried to understand everything better by analysing work and
the different steps.
Places where you can find these types of management are factories with
decomposed work assignments and a lot of people.

Mechanisation really took command:
● Engineers took the lead in rationalizing industrial relations
● Standardization of work processes and human element
● They were manipulating human behaviour to maximize output / efficiency.

This type of management still exists in different societies all over the world.

Ford / fordism really embraced a lot of taylorism:
● Specialside machinery / electrical tools (for just one purpose)
● Interchangeable parts
● Mass production
And he also added:



3

, ● The parts of the job were moved around the people, things would get more

efficient → assembly line
● Better wages = more consumers (people have more money to buy your
products)

B. Psychological humanism
Also known as theory X (taylorism) against theory Y (psychological humanism).




One leader thinker was Abraham Maslow, everyone has different types of needs
besides money:




The pyramid was the order of what Maslow thought people needed.
↳ Recent research has shown that alle needs matter, but that they are not
fully hierarchical and the importance varies between people.
This pyramid makes sure that management promotes efficiency.

Another way of thinking of these need is the: Two-level of motivation, which exists
out of:
● Hygiene factors, such as; safety, work environment, salary etc.
● Motivators factors; achievement, psychological rewards.

Scientific management and psychological humanism offer different incentive
structures, but both:
● Operate on the micro level
● Neglect macro level conditions



4

, ● Draw sharp distinctions between management and employees
● Aim to manipulate employee behaviour
● Implicitly believer there is one best way of organizing

Durkheim - human - relation
A. The works of Durkheim
● Emphasis on the social system around individuals
● An autonomous and externally existing society
● Social underpinnings of cognition (embedded rationality); norms, values and
ways of doing
● (Over)emphasis on the macro level of coleman’s boat
He feared that the tight communities would change when the people moved to cities
away from their community.

B. Hawthorne-effect
Hawthorne effect = the being observed effect
● Few respondents
● Different jobs
● Only women
The interest in the people resulted in higher efficient outputs, not only the lightning.

C. Emphasis on
The following were determinants of output:
● Informal relations
● Social cohesion
● Sentiments rather than reason
● System properties (interdependence)

D. Compared to Managerial psychologistic: More Marco-focus
But they all have:
● Draw sharp distinctions between management and employees
● Aim to manipulate worker / employee behaviour
● Believe in one best way or organizing

Interactionist - negotiated - order
This strand bridged between micro and marco.
The organizations and their members are restricted by rules, but they also bend the rules.
Erving Goffman was one of the main thinkers in this strand.

What happens in organization results from ongoing interaction between actors, leading to an
order:
● Individuals and society are mutually interdependent
● Middle position between psychologism and sociologism
● Less emphasis on rationality or sentiments, more on negotiations between actors.
● Organisational order emerges from a continual process of adjustment.
● Organisations and employees strive to preserve their identity.
Also important was:
● Self-negotiation


5

, ● Identity
● Subjective career


1.3 Lecture 2 - Strands
Weber-social action - institutional
● Interplay between objective (material) and subjective (ideas) aspects.
● Modernisation as a continuing rationalisation: traditional and magical criteria are
being replaced with technical criteria: Entzauberung der welt.
● Bureaucracy is the best way to deal with rationalisation.

For Weber is bureaucracy the most rational and efficient organisation possible.

Weber saw three forms of authority:
1. Traditional authority: sanctity, traditions
2. Charismatic authority: exceptional persons, it does not matter where you are born,
this person is exceptional, and that is why you follow them.
3. Rational-legal authority: based on legal position and rules

In the rational-legal bureaucracy, rules are followed because they are regarded as
legitimate. Bureaucracy is efficient because it is stable and predictable, while at the same
time allowing for relative independence and discretion on the part of officials. All actions are
rule-bound.


Traditional Bureaucratic

Varying division of labor Clear jurisdictional areas

Organised on personal loyalty Organised on hierarchy and appeal

Nor rules / informal rules, arbitrary enforcement Learnable rules govern decision that are recorded

Unpredictable Predictable


No separation household and business Private / professional distinction, including ownership
of means of production, office

Officials are leaders’ henchmen Officials are free, appointed for skill, get salaires

Officials serve at pleasure of the leader Employment is a (full-time & lifelong) career


Bureaucracy solves the problems of earlier administrative systems.
Yet bureaucracy cannot protect against tyranny and evil, even though it's founded on the
rule of law. Efficiency does not make it morally correct.

● Instrumental values replace substantive values and focus on efficiency.
● But… means may subert ends (the paradox of consequences)
○ You are trying to get to one thing, through instrumental efficiency, what
makes you forget the substantive end goal.
● We are all prisoners within the iron cage of the bureaucratic organization form (as the
rational instrument of modernisation).


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