Sociology of Organizations (302-CN-17)
Instructors
Joseph Michael Guisti
Trained as a sociologist specializing in the biopolitical implications of lived experience and non-credentialed expertise, I primarily work in the nonprofit sector, specializing in data and evaluation. Upon completing my PhD, I spent four years working in the neighborhood gun violence intervention sector in Chicago, supporting street outreach, workforce development and case management services at Institute for Nonviolence Chicago before moving back to my home state of California, where I now work in the homelessness services sector. I continue to serve in academia part time, as faculty director of the online major in Social Sciences at Northwestern University's School of Professional Studies, and as a course instructor.
Meeting Info
Wieboldt Hall 406: Sa 9:00AM - 12:00PM
Overview of class
This course is designed around a single proposition: before we can have any hope of managing or improving organizations, we first have to understand the concept of "organizations" at an abstract level.
Because organizations like hospitals, businesses, schools, and governments permeate our lives so extensively, we tend to assume that the only things worth knowing about organizations involve those things that tell us how to optimize them. But what if, in our rush to optimize, we never stop to ask why things are the way they are in the first place?
Unlike courses that stress the "right way" to navigate or manage organizations, this course equips students with new ways to think more conceptually about what it is that organizations do, and to consider how and why they resemble/differ from one another. Students will learn a theoretical and conceptual vocabulary for describing and making sense of organizational culture, dysfunction, and the broader institutional contexts that shape organizational life.
In terms of course expectations, the emphasis is on reading and writing about sociological and historical organizational theory at an introductory to intermediate level, and students will be encouraged to apply course material to experience from their everyday lives.
This course is part of the Business Leadership year two cohort.
Registration Requirements
There are no formal prerequisites for this course. While some students might have taken a social science course in the past (e.g. sociology, anthropology, political science, communication studies, African American studies, etc.), it is designed for students without any previous exposure to social science.
Learning Objectives
Demonstrate a sociological (rather than a managerial) approach to asking and answering questions about organizations.
Articulate in writing the ways in which broader societal institutions like race, class, gender, markets, and government regulation shape (and are shaped by) specific organizations, organizational forms, and organizational arenas.
Analyze the extent to which a given organization either confirms or challenges existing sociological theory.
Assemble a theoretically cohesive research proposal for gathering data on the functioning of a specific organization that you participate in.
Teaching Method
Readings, writing assignments, lecture, discussion
Evaluation Method
Final paper, weekly response papers, discussion board posts
Class Materials (Required)
Confirm course texts and materials by contacting instructor or viewing course Canvas site.
Lune, H. (2010). Understanding organizations. Cambridge, U.K. ; Malden, MA: Polity Press. ISBN-13: 978-0745644288 / ISBN-10: 0745644287
Note: Although the textbook is available in the Northwestern bookstore, students might find cheaper copies online