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Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets: Classical Perspectives, Current Research, and the Future Agenda

Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets

ISBN: 978-1-78052-664-5, eISBN: 978-1-78052-665-2

Publication date: 5 April 2012

Abstract

Power and domination once occupied center stage in organizational sociology. But as the field developed, the concept of power was marginalized and its overall significance for the drama of organization life neglected. Normative critiques of domination were recast as puzzles of obedience to authority, while scholars wishing to study the concrete workings of power regimes found themselves groping in the shadows. In this introduction, we advocate putting power and domination back on the agenda. Following the lead of classical theorists of power, we argue that organizations should be seen as scenes of struggles and as political projects to be constantly achieved and reconstructed. We critique structural and abstract perspectives that neglect the constant engagement of people in the negotiation of rules, meanings, and destinies. And we survey novel ideas that can help us to see power not as an abstract entity but as a pattern of interactions and social relationships that is instantiated in specific projects of domination and resistance. It is through this lens that power studies can be reinvigorated.

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Citation

Courpasson, D., Golsorkhi, D. and Sallaz, J.J. (2012), "Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets: Classical Perspectives, Current Research, and the Future Agenda", Courpasson, D., Golsorkhi, D. and Sallaz, J.J. (Ed.) Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2012)0000034003

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited