Policy as a collective venture: a symbolic interactionist approach to the study of organizational directives
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
ISSN: 0144-333X
Article publication date: 1 June 2003
Abstract
Although the particular policies that groups establish may serve to differentiate those groups from others in the broader community, policies are better envisioned as aspects of group life in the making than as structures or rules that define the character or operations of the groups under consideration. Addressing instances of policy as humanly engaged ventures, this statement attempts to demystify policy by (a) examining organizational directives in process terms, (b) explicitly incorporating people into the study of the policy‐making process. This paper also addresses policy in ways that (c) are more amenable to ethnographic research on actual instances of policy and (d) contribute to a sustained, comparative analysis of “policy in the making”.
Keywords
Citation
Prus, R. (2003), "Policy as a collective venture: a symbolic interactionist approach to the study of organizational directives", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 23 No. 6/7, pp. 13-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443330310790589
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited