Book chapter
Broadening Cultural Sociology's Scope: Meaning-Making in Mundane Organizational Life
The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology
16 Feb 2012
Abstract
This article proposes a more serious engagement between the fields of cultural sociology and organizational sociology by studying how culture shapes daily organizational life and how, in turn, everyday activity can build up to large-scale cultural change. It argues that people’s everyday methods of coordinating action in organizations, no matter how mundane, are meaningful. To support its arguments, the article examines transformations of words’ meanings in everyday language use by looking at three examples, one from a study of changes in the publishing industry and the other two from a larger study of youth civic engagement projects in the United States. It also discusses the concept of typification, structuralism in practice, border disputes within organizations, and Jeffrey C. Alexander’s notion of “performance” within organizations. Finally, it considers the use of cultural sociology to see how people in organizations coordinate action.
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9 Record Views
5 citations in Scopus
Details
- Title
- Broadening Cultural Sociology's Scope: Meaning-Making in Mundane Organizational Life
- Creators
- Jade Lo - University of California, Los AngelesNina Eliasoph - University of Southern California
- Contributors
- Philip Smith (Editor) - Yale UniversityJeffrey C Alexander (Editor) - Yale UniversityRonald N Jacobs (Editor) - University at Albany, State University of New York
- Publication Details
- The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology
- Series
- Oxford Handbooks
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- A.J. Drexel Autism Institute; Management
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85060681014
- Other Identifier
- 991021881405804721