Organizational sociology

There is a growing interest and attention for organizations to move from a shareholder capitalist to stakeholder capitalist business model, in which delivering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance is becoming more pronounced. Because of this transition, there is growing pressure for managers at all levels to act in sustainable, socially responsible, and ethical (SRE) ways; yet the current management models are based on maximizing economic value and scientific management. Therefore, the attempts to try and manage 21st century organizations with 20th century management practices and the aspirations of responsible management education have not demonstrated the desired effect (Laasch & Gherardi, 2019), as seen by continued business failures. It is not yet understood whether it is possible for the everyday manager to effectively navigate the tensions and contradictions of trying to deliver economic value to shareholders, social and ecological value to other stakeholders, while simultaneously attending to regulatory policies and, in the process, avoiding burnout for overtasked managers. Conducted in a debt remediation call center in the Dominican Republic, this study used an eclectic design integrating abductive analysis with a cultural-historical activity theory methodology to explore responsible management practices at the lowest levels of management. The findings describe responsible managers as pressure moderators enacting four primary elements: 1) embracing a pluralistic logic of responsibility, 2) accepting tensions with resilience, 3) engaging practices dynamically to moderate pressures, and 4) learning primarily on the job amid real work. In this organization, moderating the pressures of emotional labor was the primary object of their attention.

This dissertation evaluates the veracity of Richard Scott’s three pillars of
institutionalization: regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive. The test of his theory is
whether the processes and practices within the environments of the three pillars can
account for differences between academic performance and athletic performance in
Miami-Dade County, Florida public schools. Scott’s model of institutionalization works
better in predicting academic success than it does athletic success in the context of this
study as evidenced by the majority of the findings coming from the scholastic realm.
The primary methodological approach was to obtain publicly available measures
of academic performance and resources for 31 high schools in Miami-Dade County, FL,
and then evaluate relationships between these academic indicators and measures of 􀀃
􀀃school athletic performance. Pearson (parametric) and Spearman (non-parametric)
correlation coefficients were calculated to estimate the strength of association between
school characteristics and measures of academic and athletic performance. These
analyses further informed the construction of stepwise multiple linear regression models
that regressed the dependent variable (a measure of academic or athletic performance)
with a range of possible independent variables all related to individual school
characteristics.
Improvement in the academic categories included in this dissertation (math,
science, reading, and writing) has been the goal of a great deal of legislation that deals
with education at the federal, state, and local level. The top indicator of a school’s
academic performance was the number of highly qualified teachers within a school.
Cultural-cognitive pillar indicators of socioeconomic status, including minority rate and
percentage of students in a school who are eligible for free lunch, were negatively
associated with academic performance. Thus, normative and cultural-cognitive processes
can have a significant impact on whether laws and legislation have their intended effect.
In the end, it is reasonable to conclude that all three pillars complement each other in
interdependent ways within Scott’s institutional framework with different pillars taking
prominence as time and circumstances change.

Knowledge is a resource and an important asset that organizations leverage to attain their goals. In a competitive environment, efficient and effective transfer of knowledge within the firm is a strategic imperative. In each organization a system through which knowledge flows, arises by design and enactment. Like other resources, knowledge resources should flow to where they are needed, when they are needed. The flow of knowledge resources depends upon contextual characteristics of both the organization and the knowledge itself. This dissertation investigates characteristics that affect the internal flow of organizational knowledge between departments and types of employees. The study of knowledge transfer lies within the domain of knowledge management, linking strategy, organization theory and organizational cognition research. Effective knowledge management systems enhance strategy implementation and help maximize returns on organizational knowledge. These systems can offer the firm competitive advantage in speed and navigability. Knowledge management has broad theoretical scope. For this research, I draw upon theory concerning business policy and strategy (the resource-based view of the firm, competitive advantage, strategic orientation), organizational theory and cognition (bounded rationality, organizational knowledge, event management, sensemaking), information technology (media richness, communication technology) and epistemology (critical naturalism). I offer a testable model that describes how (a) departmental membership influences; (b) strategic orientation, locus of attention, communication media, sources of meaning and perceived knowledge impedance characteristics that affect; (c) knowledge discernment behavior to determine; (d) the performance of organizational knowledge transfer. The theory offers managers a somewhat rational approach to understanding and manipulating knowledge flows in order to alter the performance of knowledge assets in their firm.

The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between the ethical fit of the employee within the organization and the establishment of employee attitudes and intentions towards the organization. Also of interest was the relationship between the organization and the individual employee's ethical decision making process. Of specific interest were the antecedents and consequences of the interaction between the ethical characteristics of the individual and the ethical climate of the organization. The benefits for both the organization and individual when an ethical fit had been achieved were studied, as were the consequences when an ethical fit did not exist. Research and theory resulting from the study of person-organization fit were reviewed and applied as the basis for the hypotheses proposed in this study. While the study of an ethical organizational fit had not been previously considered, it was proposed that the benefits and consequences from a good or poor ethical fit would be similar to those results reported for person-organization fit in other areas. Respondents (N = 248) were employed full-time, but currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate business degree program. From an organizational perspective, the results indicated that the respondents described their current organizational climate similar to their ideal climate. In addition, the data indicated that when an ethical fit had been achieved, employees were more satisfied, more committed, and less likely to express an intention to turnover than respondents who had not achieved an ethical fit. From an intrapersonal perspective, the results indicated that, when faced with ethical dilemmas, the respondents were less likely to express feelings of discomfort with their personal decision when the organizational expectations for decision making matched the respondents desires. The results also indicated that the respondents were less likely to express feelings of intrapersonal role conflict when faced with ethical dilemmas when the organizational expectations for decision making matched the respondents desires. In addition, organizational expectations for ethical conduct were found to be related to the ethical decision making of the individual.