The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies

Organizations are a defining feature of the modern world, and the study of organizations (organization studies) has become well established in both sociology departments and professional schools, most notably business and management schools. Organization studies has long drawn inspiration from foundational work in sociology. In particular, "classical" works in sociology have long energized organizational research, primarily by suggesting ways of making sense of the ever-accelerating pace of social change. In recent decades, however, the field has lost interest in these sociology classics. This trend reflects and reinforces an increasingly academic focus of contempory organization studies. Not only does this trend weaken organization studies' engagement with the big social issues of our time, but it isolates the field from the broader field of the social sciences. The aim of this Handbook is to re-assert the importance of classical sociology to the future of organization studies. Alongside several thematic chapters, the volume includes chapters on each of nearly two dozen major European and American theorists, each of these chapter addressing: (a) the ideas and their context, (b) the impact of these ideas on the field of organization studies, and (c) the potential future research these ideas might inspire. The goal is not reverential exegesis, but rather to examine how the classics can energize organizational research. This wide-ranging Handbook, with contributions from leading American and European scholars, will be a vital, informative, and stimulating resource for anybody undertaking research in, teaching, or interested in learning more about organization studies today. provides excellent supplemental reading to original works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Thorstein Veblen, and other notables within this field of research. Summing up: Recommended. L. L. Hansen, University of Massachusetts, BostonPART I: THE ROLE OF THE CLASSICS; 1. Introduction: A Social Science which Forgets its Founders is Lost; 2. The Value of the Classics; PART II: EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES; 3. Tocqueville as a Pioneer in Organization Theory; 4. Marx and Organization Studies Today; 5. It's Not Just for Communists any More: Marxian Political Economy and Organizational Theory; 6. Weber:Sintering the Iron Cage: Translation, Domination, and Rationality; 7. Max Weber and the Ethics of Office; 8. On Organizations and Oligarchies: Michels in 21st Century; 9. How Durkheim's Theory of Meaning-making Influenced Organizational Sociology; 10. A Durkheimian Approach to Globalization; 11. Gabriel Tarde and Organization Theory; 12. Georg Simmel: The Individual and the Organization; 13. Types and Positions: The Significance of Georg Simmel's Structural Theories for Organizational Behavior; 14. Schumpeter and the Organization of Entrepreneurship; 15. Norbert Elias's Impact on Organization Studies; PART III: AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES; 16. Thorstein Veblen and the Organization of the Capitalist Economy; 17. The Sociology of Race: The Contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois; 18. Organizations and the Chicago School; 19. After James on Identity; 20. Reading Dewey: Some Implications for the Study of Routine; 21. Mary Parker Follett and Pragmatist Organization; 22. Peopling Organizations: The Promise of Classic Symbolic Interactionism for an Inhabited Institutionalism; 23. John R. Commons: Back to the Future of Organization Studies; 24. The Problem of the Corporation: Liberalism and the Large Organization; 25. Bureaucratic Theory and Intellectual Renewal in Contemporary Organization Studies; 26. The Columbia School and the Study of Organizations: Why Organizations Have Lives of Their Own; 27. Parsons as an Organization Theorist; PART IV: AFTERWORD; 28. Afterword: Sociological Classics and the Canon in the Study of Organizations