This is the first time I’ve ever been specifically encouraged to chime in for skimming, so I’d be crazy not to take you up on it!
Basically, I read this post, and the posts it links, as a bunch of non-sociologists realizing that a study of the sociology and psychology of organizations might be important, but then deciding to reinvent the discipline instead of engaging with it. My main concern is with tractability of understanding the problems of organizations and of finding neglected solutions. This set of posts doesn’t particularly address these tractability concerns. I’d also like to see deeper engagement with extant literature and empirical evidence on the subject of how to analyze or improve organizational structure.
In general, this line of thinking seems to point in a sort of waterfall model of organization-building, in which we first develop a well-vetted theory of organizational design, and then use it to replicably build high-functioning organizations.
It seems to me that most organizational success stories I’m aware of involved a small group of smart people getting together in a room with a vision and figuring it out as they went along.
Curious if you have particular exemplar posts from sociology.
Periodically I see people make the “I’d like to see you engaging with the mainstream literature” comment, but then, well, there’s a whole lot of mainstream literature and I’m not sure how to sift through it for the parts that are relevant to me. Do you actually have experience with the literature or just an assumption that there’s stuff there? (if you are familiar, I think it’d be great to have an orientation post giving an overview of it)
Moral Mazes is a book by a sociologist, but the topics in this theme just strike me as being basically sociological in nature. The study of social structures.
I’m not a sociologist, so no, I don’t have recommendations. But it’s very hard for me to imagine there’s nothing out there.
I guess my comment may have come off as a criticism or challenge, but that’s not what I intend. It’s just pointing out that sociology is the relevant field, and these posts are being written by folks who don’t have a strong background in those academic fields—although they may have canny personal insights from their own experience. It seems to me like the most tractable next step in terms of vetting is not to try and run new experiments, but to find out what kind of evidence already exists. Or to get some skin in the game and try it for oneself!
Again, that’s not a criticism or challenge—just my own thoughts after having spent a fair amount of time reading the posts you referenced here and reflecting on my experiences.
This is the first time I’ve ever been specifically encouraged to chime in for skimming, so I’d be crazy not to take you up on it!
Basically, I read this post, and the posts it links, as a bunch of non-sociologists realizing that a study of the sociology and psychology of organizations might be important, but then deciding to reinvent the discipline instead of engaging with it. My main concern is with tractability of understanding the problems of organizations and of finding neglected solutions. This set of posts doesn’t particularly address these tractability concerns. I’d also like to see deeper engagement with extant literature and empirical evidence on the subject of how to analyze or improve organizational structure.
In general, this line of thinking seems to point in a sort of waterfall model of organization-building, in which we first develop a well-vetted theory of organizational design, and then use it to replicably build high-functioning organizations.
It seems to me that most organizational success stories I’m aware of involved a small group of smart people getting together in a room with a vision and figuring it out as they went along.
Curious if you have particular exemplar posts from sociology.
Periodically I see people make the “I’d like to see you engaging with the mainstream literature” comment, but then, well, there’s a whole lot of mainstream literature and I’m not sure how to sift through it for the parts that are relevant to me. Do you actually have experience with the literature or just an assumption that there’s stuff there? (if you are familiar, I think it’d be great to have an orientation post giving an overview of it)
Moral Mazes is a book by a sociologist, but the topics in this theme just strike me as being basically sociological in nature. The study of social structures.
I’m not a sociologist, so no, I don’t have recommendations. But it’s very hard for me to imagine there’s nothing out there.
I guess my comment may have come off as a criticism or challenge, but that’s not what I intend. It’s just pointing out that sociology is the relevant field, and these posts are being written by folks who don’t have a strong background in those academic fields—although they may have canny personal insights from their own experience. It seems to me like the most tractable next step in terms of vetting is not to try and run new experiments, but to find out what kind of evidence already exists. Or to get some skin in the game and try it for oneself!
Again, that’s not a criticism or challenge—just my own thoughts after having spent a fair amount of time reading the posts you referenced here and reflecting on my experiences.