The service platform as a dualistic meta-organisation: An ethnographic account of contingency work and its organisational cultures

This study examines the character of service platforms in terms of economic and organisational sociology. It is based on an ethnographic study and semi-structured interviews at a delivery platform in Germany. The article argues that ser-vice platforms can be conceived of as dualistic meta-organisations. At the centre of the company is a complete organisation with membership rights and obligations. Be-yond the centre of the organisation, there is a peripheral organisation which is a hybrid between organisation and market. This partial organisation only provides limited rights and duties to its members. These conditional labour relations in the digital economy can be seen as a modern-ized organisational match of precarious labour relations in the form of contingency work. Within this structure, em-ployees thus experience new forms of insecurity.

Organisation matters: towards an organisational sociology of science communication

PurposeThis paper looks at science communication through an organisational lens with the aim of assessing the relevance of different organisational forms for science communication.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explores science communication in different organisational forms. Based on conceptual considerations and by reviewing existing empirical literature, the paper selects and compares three organisational forms of science communication: the editorial office of a daily newspaper, the press office of a university and the Science Media Centre.FindingsThe paper shows the relevance of organisation for science communication by comparing three organisational forms. The first two, the science news desk and the press office, have the character of a sub-system of an organisation, while the third, the Science Media Centre, forms its own organisation. The paper shows how the respective set-up shapes science-media contacts with a focus on the occurrence and resolution of conflicts.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper proposes a conceptual framework for studying science communication through an organisational lens but leaves comparative empirical studies of all types to future research. Yet, it outlines and compares implications of the formal organisation of science communication from a conceptual point of view.Practical implicationsThe findings provide information on the structural impact of different organisational forms on science communication and point to where conflicting expectations, and thus potential conflicts, are most likely to occur in each case. A reflection of structurally conflicting expectations and how they can be overcome in specific situations is of high practical value for all science communication activities.Originality/valueOrganisational theorists have long argued that organisations are the key to understanding society. Despite their undoubted relevance, however, organisations and their influence on science communication have so far been much less analysed – both conceptually and empirically – than its contents, its practices and its impacts on public understanding, public policy, and on science and scientists. The paper contributes to the emerging field with conceptual considerations towards an organisational sociology of science communication.

“Normal citizens” versus “Rowdies”: police categorisations of protesters in Germany

The paper investigates police perceptions of protesters. Based on group discussions with riot police and interviews with high ranking officers, six domains are analysed as dimensions of a risk constellation contributing to the emergence of an enemy image of the protester. The findings suggest that labels describing the “police counterpart” often express distance and opposition (1) and depoliticise demonstrations (2). Furthermore, formal (3) and informal (4) categorisations of protesters as well as the perception of indications of threat in policing practice (5) are examined. Bipolar patterns of classification of protesters were found to be influential. Classifications are partly based in the law and partly in particularistic and normative subcultural attributions of legitimacy which police transfer into their organisational interpretive schemata distinguishing between legality/illegality. For explanatory means the study utilises perspectives of organisational sociology as well as the cultural distance between the police and the protesters (6). This is further elaborated using the social figure of the “normal citizen”, in which specific police conceptions of normality are condensed and which serves as a threshold for the perception of deviant protesters. Besides the implications for theory of democracy of the analysed clichés and enemy images the findings conclusively suggest that the distanced to hostile relationship between the police and some protesters does not merely represent a pedagogical or “practical” problem of the police, but is the expression of a certain conflict structure. In this structure organisational and individual factors on the side of the police as well as their actual conflict experience at demonstrations converge.

Non-Governmental Organisations and Legitimacy: Authority, Power and Resources

In the analysis of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), legitimacy and legitimation are useful concepts because they bring to light the processes through which organisational entities justify their right to exist and their actions within a particular normative context. Theories of legitimacy underscore the moral basis of organisational power as grounded in the relationship between organisations and different kinds of audiences. In this article, we look at how those concepts and theories relate to the study of NGOs. Those theories not only help us understand how organisations establish themselves, strengthen their position and survive over time despite very limited material resources of their own, but also how organisations may build political power. In our review of the literature on organisational legitimacy, we focus on three main aspects of legitimacy: the conceptualisation of the term in organisational sociology, political sociology and political science; the constraining role of institutionalised normative contexts and competing audiences in the legitimation processes; the agentic role of organisations within both institutional and strategic contexts.

Responsibility to Protect and Theorising Normative Change in International Organisations: From Weber to the Sociology of Professions

How does normative change occur in international organisations (IOs)? The literature has theorised IO behaviour as being a consequence of the interest of powerful states, or has applied concepts borrowed from organisational sociology related to bureaucratic dysfunction, such as ‘dysfunctional behaviour’, ‘pathologies’, or ‘organised hypocrisy’. This article argues that using the sociology of professions can augment constructivist theorising of IO behaviour and offer a better understanding of normative change in IOs. The evolving norm of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) has a significant impact on how the UN supports and intervenes in member states, and on the core principle of sovereignty in the international system. By examining the R2P concept and process, this article shows how key donor states, think tanks, and academic institutions have, together with the UN, pushed for R2P, effectively driving normative change in the international system. Such change is seen not solely as a top–down function of state interests, but as also a bottom–up process driven by advocacy and support from key donor states, think tanks, and academic circles. Further, for grasping how norms develop, a constructivist framework influenced by the sociology of professions appears better suited than existing constructivist frameworks.

Explaining cooperation between IGOs and NGOs – push factors, pull factors, and the policy cycle

The ever closer collaboration between intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is empirically well described but poorly theorised. In this article I develop a general theoretical framework for analysing emergent patterns of cooperation between IGOs and NGOs, which may be used to generate hypotheses or guide comparatives studies. The starting point is a conception of organisational actors as purposeful but resource-dependent. The article then combines a ‘resource exchange perspective’ from organisational sociology with the model of a policy cycle from comparative politics. The result is a theoretical framework that allows to identify incentives for, as well as obstacles to, IGO-NGO cooperation along all phases of the policy cycle. In a concluding section the limits of this model and the underlying assumptions are discussed.

Departementalitet eller guvernementalitet – organisationers og organisationsteoriers historiske sociologi

Artiklen undersøger de selvbeskrivelser, der er blevet fremsat i forsøgene på at organisere organisation lige siden 1000-tallet. Moderne organisationsforståelse er opstået gennem hundreder af år. Koder for organisatorisk kommunikation er blevet sammensat, udviklet og raffineret eksempelvis i konflikter om centralisering eller decentralisering i korpsånd og i bureaukrati. I tolkningen heraf anvendes Niklas Luhmanns begrebsdannelse, der udviser en anden tilgang til organisationshistorie og organisationssociologi, end den, der kendes fra Weber og Foucault. Søgeord: Organisationssociologi, Foucault, Luhmann, historisk sociologi. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Gorm Harste: Departmentality or Governmentality – the Historical Sociology of Organisations and Organisation Theory History of organisations probably goes back to the 11th century. The long story of their development has been told by Max Weber and Michel Foucault. However Foucault did not elaborate a general organisational sociology and Weber’s story created a somewhat incomprehensible disordered complexity. Hence traditional organisational analyses trace organisation theory back a hundred years – to Weber and a few others. The present story about departmentality derives its conceptual framework not within governing or steering as Foucault does, but in the problem of delegation. The concept and theories of power were established in order to handle coordination at spatial distance. The aim of powerful concepts and theories of organisation was to establish communication in forms of simultaneous cooperation between distant operations. The article establishes this temporal conception in a historical sociology of organisation using Niklas Luhmann’s system theory. Power only empowers if centralised power is able to decentralise and abstain from forced control in favour of the activity of parts departed and detached from the whole. The parts and the members of the organ got their identity fi rst described in a conception of ”corpus spiritus”, later called ”esprit de corps” and then ”corporate spirit”. The article analyses these semantics and their developments. Key words: Luhmann, Foucault, history of organizations, historical sociology, governmentality, department.

Misleading outside directors in public companies – The Israeli case

The external directors, who serve by law on the board of directors, are responsible for ensuring that, in addition to protecting the interests of stakeholders, the company will take the public interest into consideration. In this research we critically assess this system of corporate governance, and examine whether the external directors can actually succeed in looking out for the public’s interest. The research is based on in-depth interviews with external directors of leading public companies in Israel, representing different sectors. The issue at stake is both conceptual and practical: Conceptually there is an issue of how the notion of "the public interest" is understood and whether the legal construct of "outside directors" is capable of manifesting the public interest. Practically the issue at stake has to do with organisational sociology and how the relations within the Board are set and who are the outside directors.