Search results

Organizations remain a vital sociological topic, but organizational sociology, as a subfield, has evolved significantly since its inception. In this paper, I argue that organization sociology is becoming increasingly disconnected from organizational theory, as currently conceived. The focus of sociological research on organizations has become more empirically grounded in the study of social problems and how organizations contribute to them. Sociologists continue to see organizations as important actors in society that play a role in shaping social order and as contexts in which social processes play out. I propose two main sociological approaches for organizational research, which I describe as “organizations within society” and “society within organizations.” The first approach examines the role of organizations as building blocks of social structure and as social actors in their own right. The second approach treats organizations as platforms and locations of social interactions and the building of community. These approaches are somewhat disconnected from the sort of grand theorizing that characterizes much of organizational theory. I argue that the problem-oriented sociology of these two approaches offers a vital way for organizational scholars to expand and theoretically revitalize the field.

This study aims to explore psychological safety as a potential moderating mechanism for the relation between functional diversity and individual perceptions of learning, and functional diversity and team performance in self-assembled teams.

To test these relationships, the authors conducted a cross-level, time-lagged, quasi-experiment, using a sample of 143 self-assembled teams. In one condition, participants formed into functionally diverse teams, and in another condition, participants formed functionally homogeneous teams.

Results suggest that functional diversity and psychological safety have an interactive effect on both individual learning and self-assembled team performance, albeit in different directions. Specifically, low psychological safety was more deleterious for individuals on functionally diverse teams than functionally homogeneous teams when it came to perceptions of learning, but the opposite was true when it came to team performance.

The results of this study indicate that it is critical to train team members on developing psychological safety, both in traditional and functionally diverse contexts.

The purpose of the study is to investigate female prisoners’ perspectives on why they gain weight while in prison.

A qualitative design was used with semi-structured interviews with six females currently residing in a prison in the south of England.

Analysis of the data generated three themes relating to the reasons why women gain weight in prison. These were labelled as “The only thing you haven’t got to ask permission for is your food, it’s just handed to you”, “If you’ve been stripped of the things that make you happy, or that you are addicted to, eating can soothe you” and “prison can make you take better care of your health”.

The results identify perceived reasons why women gain weight in prison uniquely from the female prisoner perspective. The implications of the research identify the need for systemic change throughout different prison departments to enable women to maintain a healthy weight during their custodial sentence.