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Organizations and Environments

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Provides an introduction to research in "organizations and environments," an interdisciplinary domain of inquiry drawing primarily from sociology, and secondarily from economics, psychology, and political science. Seeks to understand organizational processes and outcomes in the surrounding economic, cultural, and institutional context in which they are situated. Also provides an introduction to the main groups that together form the Behavioral Policy Sciences (BPS) area of MIT/Sloan, including economic sociology, organization studies, work and employment, strategic management, global management, and technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Consists of four modules taught by faculty from each of the four BPS groups, as well as integrative sessions taught by the main instructor. Preference to first-year doctoral students in BPS.

Fall 2004

Topics

  • Organizations: Definitions, Evolution, and Current Developments
  • Organization Theory: Historical, Conceptual and Occupational Trends
  • Debating Contemporary Organization Theory
  • Structural Contingency and Resource Dependence Theories
  • Social Network Analysis
  • New Institutionalism
  • Organizational Ecology
  • Technology in the Workplace
  • Professional Work
  • Class Presentation and Discussion of Students’ Term-Papers
  • Class Presentation and Discussion of Students’ Term-Papers (cont.)

Readings

  • LEC #: 1 · TOPICS: Organizations: Definitions, Evolution, and Current Developments · READINGS: Perrow, C. “A Society of Organizations.” Theory and Society 20 (1991): 725-762.
    Reading assignment
  • Powell, W. “The Capitalist Firm in the 21st century: Emerging Patterns.” In The Twenty-first Century Firm, Edited by P. DiMaggio, 34-68. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0691058512.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 2 · TOPICS: Organization Theory: Historical, Conceptual and Occupational Trends · READINGS: Barley, S., and G. Kunda. “Design and Devotion: Surges of Rational and Normative Ideologies of Control in Managerial Discourse.” Administrative Science Quarterly 37 (1992): 363-399.
    Reading assignment
  • Barley, S., and G. Kunda. “Bringing Work Back in.” Organization Science 12 (2001): 76-95.
    Listed reading
  • Guillen, M. Chapter 2 in Models of Management: Work, Authority and Organization in a Comparative Perspective, 30-90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. ISBN: 0226310361.
    Listed reading
  • Pfeffer, J. Chapter 1 in New Directions for Organization Theory, 3-24. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN: 0195114345
    Listed reading
  • Shenhav, Y. “From Chaos to Systems: The Engineering Foundations of Organization Theory, 1879-1932.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 557-585.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 3 · TOPICS: Debating Contemporary Organization Theory · READINGS: Latour, B. Chapter 1 in Science in Action , 21-62. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ISBN: 0674792912.
    Reading assignment
  • Theory and Theorizing
    Listed reading
  • Sutton, R., and B. Staw. “What Theory is Not.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 371-384.
    Listed reading
  • Weick, K. “What Theory is Not, Theorizing is.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 385-390.
    Listed reading
  • DiMaggio, P. “Comments on “What theory is not.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 391-397.
    Listed reading
  • Pluralism and its Discontents
    Listed reading
  • Pfeffer, J. “Barriers to the Advance of Organizational Science: Paradigm Development as a Dependent Variable.” Academy of Management Review 18 (1993): 599-620.
    Listed reading
  • van Maanen, J. “Style as Theory.” Organization Science 6 (1995): 133-143.
    Listed reading
  • Pfeffer, J. “Mortality, Reproducibility, and the Persistence of Styles of Theory.” Organization Science 6 (1995): 681-686.
    Listed reading
  • Van Maanen, J. “Fear and Loathing in Organization Studies.” Organization Science 6 (1995): 687-692.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 4 · TOPICS: Structural Contingency and Resource Dependence Theories · READINGS: Structural Contingency Theory
    Reading assignment
  • Galbraith, J. Chapters 1 and 2 in Designing Complex Organizations , 1-21. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1973. ISBN: 0201025590.
    Listed reading
  • Lawrence, P., and J. Lorsch. “Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly 12 (1967): 1-47.
    Listed reading
  • Thompson, J. Chapters 1-6 in Organizations in Action , 3-82. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. ISBN: 0070643806.
    Listed reading
  • Resource Dependence Theory
    Listed reading
  • Emerson, R. “Power-Dependence Relations.” American Sociological Review 27 (1962): 31-41.
    Listed reading
  • Pfeffer, J., and G. Salancik. Chapters 1, 3, 7 in The External Control of Organizations, 1-22, 39-61, 143-187. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. ISBN: 0060451939.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 5 · TOPICS: Social Network Analysis · READINGS: Burt, R. Chapter 1 in Structural Holes , 8-49. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. ISBN: 067484372X.
    Reading assignment
  • Granovetter, M. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1360-1380.
    Listed reading
  • Granovetter, M. “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481-510.
    Listed reading
  • Uzzi, B. “The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness for the Economic Performance of Organizations: The Network Effect.” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 674-698.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 6 · TOPICS: New Institutionalism · READINGS: Barley, S., and P. Tolbert. “Institutionalization and Structuration: Studying the Links between Action and Institution.” Organization Studies 18 (1997): 93-117.
    Reading assignment
  • DiMaggio, P., and W. Powell. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 147-160.
    Listed reading
  • Meyer, J., and B. Rowan. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83 (1977): 340-363.
    Listed reading
  • Mizruchi, M., and L. Fein. “The Social Construction of Organizational Knowledge: A Study of the Uses of Coercive, Mimetic, and Normative Isomorphism.” Administrative Science Quartely 44 (1999): 653-683.
    Listed reading
  • Tolbert, P., and L. Zucker. “Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935.” Administrative Science Quarterly 28 (1983): 22-39.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 7 · TOPICS: Organizational Ecology · READINGS: Hannan, M., and J. Freeman. “The Population Ecology of Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology 82 (1977): 929-964.
    Reading assignment
  • Hannan, M., and J. Freeman. Chapters 1-2 in Organizational Ecology , 3-44. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. ISBN: 0674643488.
    Listed reading
  • Haveman, H. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Organizational Change and Performance Under Conditions of Fundamental Environmental Transformation.” Administrative Science Quarterly , 37 (1992): 48-75.
    Listed reading
  • Stinchcombe, A. “Social Structure and Organizations.” In Handbook of Organizations, 142-193_._ Edited by J. March. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965. ISBN: 082408215X. [Focus on pp. 142-169.]
    Listed reading
  • Sorensen, J. “The Ecology of Organizational Demography: Managerial Tenure Distributions and Organizational Competition.” Industrial and Corporate Change 8 (1999): 713-744.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 8 · TOPICS: Technology in the Workplace · READINGS: Barley, S. “Technology as an Occasion for Structuring: Evidence from Observations of CT Scanners and the Social Order of Radiology Departments.” Administrative Science Quarterly 31 (1986): 78-108.
    Reading assignment
  • Bechky, B. “Object Lessons: Workplace Artifacts as Representations of Occupational Jurisdiction.” American Journal of Sociology 109 (2003): 720-752.
    Listed reading
  • Orlikowski, W. “Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations.” Organization Science 11 (2000): 404-428.
    Listed reading
  • Rosenkopf, L., and M. Tushman. “The Coevolution of Technology and Organization.” In Evolutionary Dynamics of Organizations . Edited by J. Baum and J. Singh, 403-424. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 0195085841.
    Listed reading
  • Yates, J. Chapter 2 in Control through Communication , 21-64. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. ISBN: 080183757X.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Fall) 3-0-9 units

Sources