SYLLABUS
SOCI 302 Sociology of Organizations and Institutions
Koç University
Spring 2009
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Class: SOSZ21Time: 12:30-13:45
Office: SOS 254 Phone ext.: 1309E-mail:
Office Hours: Wednesday, 11:00-12.30, Thursday, 14:30-16:00, or by appointment
Course Description: This course introduces students to the sociological study of organizations and institutions. We will especially focus on the evolution of business organizations in response to technological changes and changes in the capitalist world economy. Within this context, we will discuss types of labor control and labor process. The emphasis will be on the structure and systems of organizations more so than on human behavior. This means that we will not explore individual or social-psychological levels within organizations nor will we learn how to manage people. The course will be based on lectures, readings, film screenings and hopefully one field trip to a factory.
Course Materials:
A course reader containing most of the readings will be available for sale at the XEROX Office. Some of the articles are available online through the SOCI302 page on Courseware as indicated below.
Course Evaluation: Your success in this course depends on regular attendance, active participation and doing the readings on time. There will be one midterm exam, five reading responses, one assignment and a final exam.
Midterm: 30 percent
Assignment: 20 percent
Reading responses: 5 x 4 points = 20 percent
Final: 25 percent
Attendance and participation: 5 percent
Note on the assignment and reading responses: You will write your assignment (around 4 double-spaced typed pages) based on your observations during our field trip. In the event that the field trip is cancelled, I will provide topics on which to write the assignment. Throughout the semester, you will write two-page (typed and double-spaced) summaries of five weeks’ readings as listed below. This will start on Week 3. One film review may count towards a reading response, in which case I will announce it during the course of the semester.
Academic Integrity and Student Conduct: Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated and will result in a grade of “0” and possible disciplinary action. Please refer to the course web page for the Sociology Department’s Guidelines.
Course Schedule
WEEK 1: February 10-12
INTRODUCTION
“Nature and types of organizations,” in Hall, Organizations, chapter 2.
WEEK 2: February 17-19
CLASSIC ORGANIZATION THEORY
“Bureaucracy,” Max Weber. In F. Fischer and C. Sirianni (eds.) Critical Studies in Organization and Bureaucracy, 1994. chapter 1.
“The spirit of bureaucracy and beyond bureaucracy,” Karl Marx. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 2.
WEEK 3: February 24-26
“Oligarchy,” Robert Michels. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 3.
WEEK 4: March 3-5
INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
“From manufacture to modern society.” Karl Marx, from Das Kapital, vol.1.
“Scientific management,” Frederick Taylor. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 4.
“The real meaning of Taylorism,” Harry Braverman. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 5.
Film screening: Modern Times
WEEK 5: March 10-12
LABOR CONTROL
“Forms of control in the labor process: An historical analysis,” R. Edwards. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 8.
“Organizing Consent on the Shop Floor: the Game of Making Out,” Michael Burawoy. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 10.
“Making Subjects” Leslie Salzinger, in Genders in Production, 2003.
WEEK 6: March 17-19
“Hanging Tongues: A Sociological Encounter with the Assembly Line,” William Thompson. In James Henslin, Down to Earth Sociology, 1995.
“McDonald’s. We Do it All for You,” Barbara Garson. In James Henslin, Down to Earth Sociology, 1995.
Gamze Yücesan-Özdemir: “Hidden Forms of Resistance among Turkish Workers: Hegemonic Incorporation or Building Blocks for Working Class Struggle?” Capital and Class, no. 81, Autumn 2003, pp. 31-59. (online)
WEEK 7: March 24-26
Cont’d
WEEK 8: March 31-April 2
Review and midterm (exact date tba)
SPRING BREAK (April 6-10)
WEEK 9: April 14-16
HUMAN RELATIONS SCHOOL AND ITS CRITIQUES
“Human Relations and the Informal Organization,” Roethlisberger and Dickson. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 6.
“Hawthorne, the Myth of the Docile Worker, and Class Bias in Psychology,” Dana Bramel and Ronald Friend. In Sociology of Organizations. A Reader, ed. Michael Handel, 2004, pp. 97-107.
WEEK 10: April 21 (no class on April 23)
MANAGERIAL CAPITALISM
“The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism,” Alfred Chandler, The Business History Review, vol. 58, no.4, 1984 (online)
“Fordism,” David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1989.
WEEK 11: April 28-30
POST-FORDISM
“From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation,” David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1989.
Film screening: “Enron. The Smartest Guys in the Room”
WEEK 12: May 5-7
“Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization,” Walter Powell, Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 12, 1990 (online)
“The Evolution and Devolution of the Italian Industrial Districts,” Bennett Harrison, Lean and Mean, 1994, chapter 4.
WEEK 13: May 12-14
GENDER IN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
“Women and power in organizations,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies, chapter 17.
“Sexuality and difference: on whose terms?” C. Cockburn, in The Way Home.
“Trope Chasing: Making a Local Labor Market,” Leslie Salzinger, in Genders in Production. Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories, 2003.
WEEK 14: May 19-21
Review
Assignments due this week
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