The Structuring of Work in Organizations

by Lisa Cohen (Editor), M. Diane Burton (Editor), Michael Lounsbury (Editor)

Overview

Differences in management behavior across organizations are attributed to differences in priorities and objectives or differences in the style and preferences of the individuals involved. This volume challenges this image by attending to the extra-organizational and extra-individual forces that shape and constrain how work is structured in organizations. The authors focus their attention on work within and between organizations and emphasize the ways in which the jobs are defined, the power and autonomy they engender, the opportunities that are afforded, and the constraints that are imposed, are continuously contested not only at the individual level, but also at a more aggregate and collective level. This volume is the product of an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars convened with generous support of the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council. It presents new theoretical and empirical papers that examine aspects of the changing nature of jobs and work in organizations from multiple perspectives and methodologies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786354365
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Publication date:	08/23/2016
Series:	Research in the Sociology of Organizations , #47
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Edited by Lisa E. Cohen, McGill University, Canada M. Diane Burton, Cornell University, USA Michael Lounsbury, University of Alberta, Canada

Table of Contents

List of Contributors ix

Editorial Advisory Board xi

Introduction: Bringing Jobs Back In: Toward a New Multi-Level Approach to the Study of Work and Organizations Lisa E. Cohen M. Diane Burton Michael Lounsbury 1

Part I Tasks and Jobs as Building Blocks

Jobs as Gordian Knots a New Perspective Linking Individuals, Tasks, Organizations, and Institutions Lisa E. Cohen 25

Idiosyncratic Jobs, Organizational Transformation, and Career Mobility Anne S. Miner Olubukunola (Bukky) Akinsanmi 61

The Ideology of Silence at the Harvard Business School: Structuring Faculty's Teaching Tasks for Moral Relativism Michel Anteby 103

Part II Occupational and Professional Boundaries

What Do Technicians Mean When They Talk About Professionalism? An Ethnography of Speaking Stephen R. Barley Beth A. Bechky Bonalyn J. Nelsen 125

Compliance Police or Business Partner? Institutional Complexity and Occupational Tensions in Human Resource Management Kurt W. Sandholtz Tyler N. Burrows 161

Part III Structure as Constraint

Structure at Work: Organizational Forms and the Division of Labor in U.S. Wineries Heather A. Haveman Anand Swaminathan Eric B. Johnson 195

It's Not You, It's Your Job: Network Evolution Within Firms Jennifer Kurkoski 241

Help Me Do It On My Own: How Entrepreneurs Manage Autonomy and Constraint Within Incubator Organizations Victor P. Seidel Kelley A. Paekalen Siobhan O'Mahony 275

Part IV Changing and Perpetuating Structures

Legal Avoidance and the Restructuring of Work Charlotte S. Alexander 311

Externalization of Work By Corporate Law Firms: Implications for Careers and the Profession Christine Riordan Paul Osterman 333

Work as Commons: Internal Labor Markets, Blended Workforces and Management Arnaldo Camuffo Federica De Stefano 363

From Adapting Practices to Inhabiting Ideas: How Managers Restructure Work Across Organizations Ruthanne Huising 383

Editorial Reviews

Business, management, and other specialists from the US, Europe, and Canada offer 12 essays that consider the structure and structuring of work within and between organizations, focusing on jobs and how they are shaped by and impact organizations, occupations, and institutions. They discuss jobs as the building blocks of organizational and societal structures, with examples like idiosyncratic jobs and college teaching; professional and occupational boundaries for technicians and human resource departments; constraints related to work in organizations, including organizational identity, network position, and autonomy; and how structures are perpetuated and changed and stress broader institutional and political forces.

Annotation