Institution as mediation between social structure and agency: Toward a realist social ontology of institutions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vefa Saygın Öğütle
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Structure And Agency

Introduction to Constructing Organizational Life

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Thomas B. Lawrence ◽  
Nelson Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Key Dimensions

This chapter develops the arguments that underpin the rest of the book, and introduces the three forms of social-symbolic work explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It begins by exploring the possibility of social-symbolic work that is rooted in the historical changes associated with the transitions to modernity and postmodernity. It then develops the concept of social-symbolic work, explaining its roots in studies of social structure and agency, identifying its three key dimensions—discursive, relational, and material—and introducing three key forms of social-symbolic work (self work, organization work, institutional work). Finally, it presents a process model of social-symbolic work that guides the analysis of the different forms of social-symbolic work.

Change: discourses of agency and progress in organisational change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hearn
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Staff Training ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Middle Section ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Ideological Work

This chapter examines how HBOS staff were coping with and making sense of rapid organisational change during the early days of merger. But more specifically, using material from staff training courses, it looks at how the Bank, like other modern organisations, develops its own internal discourse of the necessity and value of change, as a kind of moral imperative imposed on staff. Moreover, it looks at how the discourse of change within HBOS tended to construct Bank of Scotland as older and backward, and Halifax as younger and progressive, and the ideological work this was doing. The concept of ‘social change’ is scrutinised in the middle section, along with corollary concepts of competition, social structure and agency.

The Social-Symbolic Work Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 14-52
Author(s):  
Thomas B. Lawrence ◽  
Nelson Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Dimensions

This chapter develops the arguments that underpin the rest of the book and introduces the three forms of social-symbolic work explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It begins by exploring how the possibility of social-symbolic work is rooted in the historical changes associated with the transitions to modernity and postmodernity. It then develops the concept of social-symbolic work, explaining its roots in studies of social structure and agency, identifying its three key dimensions—discursive, relational, and material—and introducing three key forms of social-symbolic work (self work, organization work, institutional work). Finally, it presents a process model of social-symbolic work that guides the analysis of the different forms of social-symbolic work.

Comment: Emotions as Relational Orientations: Accounting for Culture and Social Structure

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian von Scheve
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constructive Criticism

The present contribution provides a constructive criticism of Brian Parkinson’s “Heart to Heart: A Relation-Alignment Approach to Emotion’s Social Effects.” I outline a number of points in Parkinson’s approach that I find particularly useful from a sociological perspective on emotions and provide suggestions for further extending his account. In doing so, I concentrate on issues regarding the social ontology of emotion, the proposition of emotional adjacency pairs in verbal and facial communication, the importance of social appraisals in intergroup contexts, and the relevance of social institutions for understanding how some emotions come to dominate certain social relations.

Online music recommendation platforms as representations of ontologies of musical taste

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-281
Author(s):  
Benjamin Krämer
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Music Recommendation ◽  
Social Proximity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Musical Taste ◽  
Online Music ◽  
Technical Systems

Abstract The framework of the ‘social ontology of the internet’ is applied to music recommendation platforms. Those websites provide individual suggestions of music to users, creating new dynamics of taste that are no longer based on human-to-human interaction and verbalized judgments. An exemplary analysis of three platforms shows that different conceptions of musical tastes are represented by technical systems: situational emotional preferences, a formalist aesthetics, and social proximity based on tastes. The platforms share certain assumptions about the ontology of musical entities and of course the constitutive act of recommending. We discuss how this act can be ascribed to technical systems. Theses on the platforms’ effects on the social structure of musical tastes are developed.

Social structure and agency

2017 ◽  
pp. 45-68
Author(s):  
Mahabat Sadyrbek
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Structure And Agency

Social ontology and social structure

2011 ◽  
pp. 64-86
Author(s):  
Dave Elder-Vass
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Ontology

scholarly journals Free Will, Determinism and the “Problem” of Structure and Agency in the Social Sciences

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Pleasants
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust

The so-called “problem” of structure and agency is clearly related to the philosophical problem of free will and determinism, yet the central philosophical issues are not well understood by theorists of structure and agency in the social sciences. In this article I draw a map of the available stances on the metaphysics of free will and determinism. With the aid of this map the problem of structure and agency will be seen to dissolve. The problem of structure and agency is sustained by a failure to distinguish between metaphysical and empirical senses of the relation between social structure and individual agency. The ramifications of this distinction are illustrated via a case study of competing explanations of perpetrator behavior in Christopher Browning’s and Daniel Goldhagen’s studies of the German Order Police in the Holocaust.

James Buchanan on the nature of choice: ontology, artifactual man and the constitutional moment in political economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 1159-1179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Lewis ◽  
Malte Dold
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Constitutional Political Economy ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
James Buchanan ◽  
Human Choice ◽  
Human Agent

Abstract Historians of economic thought are paying greater attention to issues of social ontology (i.e. to the assumptions that economists make about the nature of social reality). We contribute to this burgeoning literature by exploring the hitherto neglected way in which James Buchanan invoked ontological considerations, concerning in particular the nature of human choice, both in criticising neoclassical economics and also in setting out his own contributions to constitutional political economy. We focus on Buchanan’s account of man as an artifactual being who has the capacity to choose the kind of person he wishes to become, in particular by selecting the kind of preferences he wishes to have and the kinds of rules under which he wishes to live. We discuss how Buchanan’s thinking on this issue was shaped by Frank Knight and G. L. S. Shackle and explain why Buchanan explicitly described his argument as ontological in nature. Finally, we contend that Buchanan’s approach would have benefited from further ontological elaboration, in two ways: first, because his arguments would have been stronger had he said more about the attributes of the human agent that help to secure their engagement in thinking creatively about themselves and the rules of society (‘the constitutional moment’), and second because his account would benefit from a deeper discussion of the interplay between human agency and social structure, especially with regard to the question of which structures might constrain or facilitate creative choices of the kind by which he set such great store.

The Usefulness of Indepth Life History Interviews for Exploring the Role of Social Structure and Human Agency in Youth Transitions

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Hubbard
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Youth Transitions

This paper discusses the usefulness of indepth life history interviews in illustrating the role of social structure and human agency in youth transitions. Drawing on sociological theory and youth transition research, the paper highlights how the role of structure and agency has been perceived by youth researchers. Whilst this literature acknowledges the interplay between structure and agency in transitional processes, the appropriateness of particular research methods for explicating structure and agency needs to be further elucidated. Using data from a study of youth transitions in rural areas of Scotland, a range of transitional experiences from two indepth life history interviews is presented here. This exploratory exercise suggests that life history interviews enable researchers to explore how far social structures provide opportunities and constraints for human agents at the same time as showing how individuals, with their own beliefs and desires, take actions despite the social structures that underlie the immediacy of their experiences.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document