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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 analyses the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on government accountability regarding the employment of both national and migrant workforces by bringing evidence from an emerging market. In doing so, this study addresses if/how the government discharged its accountability to the public during this recent global health crisis, which started in late 2019, with its effects still being felt today.

This study is based on a close reading of the relevant news media (local and international), published research and official reports, as well as ten conversations with business managers to analyse the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on government accountability in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This study draws on insights from public choice theory in trying to understand why some governments take an economic perspective while exercising accountability to their population during the pandemic.

It was found that COVID-19 led the government to pursue plans for the localization of the professions and increase employment rates among nationals vs. foreigners or migrant workers. The crisis was exploited by the government to achieve macro socio-political and economic goals, demonstrating its accountability to citizens, rather than foreign workers. This shift shows that difficult and exceptional circumstances can present opportunities for policymakers in emerging markets to achieve national policy and political aims.

This study enhances the author’s understanding of accountability during crises (i.e. crises-induced accountability) in emerging markets. The analyses presented enrich the crisis management literature by highlighting the implicit actions of national leaders that affect the lives and well-being of their constituents, especially vulnerable groups.

This study attempts to answer the question: “how are the two drivers, accountability focus and organizational learning, independently and interactively associated with public agencies’ proactive policy orientation?” The first driver is the multiple accountabilities that public agencies pursue: (1) bureaucratic, (2) legal, (3) professional and (4) political. The second driver is the organizational learning activities of public agencies: (1) socialization, (2) externalization, (3) combination and (4) internalization.

For data, 800 respondents from the public agencies in South Korea were surveyed.

The analysis provided several findings: (1) the discretionary accountabilities (professional and political) have a greater positive influence on the proactive policy orientation; (2) the conventional accountabilities (legal and bureaucratic) tend to have negative impacts on the proactive policy orientation and (3) among the four types of accountability, legal accountability can be more significantly complemented by organizational learning activities, which can enable both visionary and realistic administration in a balanced manner.

This study provides a unique insight on how organizational proactivity can be ensured through the interactions of organizational accountabilities and organizational learning.

This study aims to investigate the unique cultural attributes of a particular association. The research focuses on a single case study involving a civil society organization whose activities are focused within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Specifically, the association under examination is a religious voluntary organization engaged in social activities within the Israeli Defense Forces.

Data collection employed a qualitative approach using the case study method, with twenty in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted. The research questions guiding the study are: What are the hybrid structural characteristics of the religious association? How has this hybrid structure influenced the organizational culture?

The study identifies a hybrid structure comprising community, familial, and bureaucratic features. It reveals a blend of clan and bureaucratic cultural elements within the organization, demonstrating adaptability to the ideology of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The research uncovers an innovative hybrid structure that successfully navigates bureaucratic challenges and fosters a familial atmosphere contributing to communal benefits.

This study aims to demonstrate the importance of organizational networks in organizational performance is relatively rich; less understood are processes in organizational networking that entrepreneurs and organizations use in making sense of rapidly changing contexts for organizational performance.

This study conducts an exploratory organizational-level narrative analysis into firms’ experiences in two major emerging markets (EMs), namely, Russia and India – to identify organizational networking processes in the midst of institutional upheavals. The study is based on in-depth case studies of firms in EMs sourced from interview data from senior management and consolidated with secondary data.

The authors find that initially firms rely on informal networks (including blat/svyazi and jaan-pehchaan/jan-pehchan) and later formal (in the form of bureaucratic followed by proprietary) networks to make sense of the changes and uncertainties in turbulent environments. The authors also demonstrate the cyclical nature of strategic sensemaking in the process of developing organizational networks for performance.

The study has a number of theoretical and practical contributions. First, it extends the well-established business networking construct to a more inclusive organizational networking construct. Second, it demonstrates that sensemaking is dependent on interorganizational networking from the outset and throughout the growth of an organization in turbulent markets – from informal to formal bureaucratic and proprietary networks. Finally, this study is unique in documenting the entire process of sensemaking from scanning to performance as well as successfully demonstrating the cyclical nature of sensemaking.

This study seeks to investigate how managerial assumptions shape international market orientation (IMO) and how IMO, in turn, affects the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), drawing from cognitive theory and the resource-based view (RBV) to provide the theoretical framework.

The study focuses on the relatively unexplored domain of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan. A survey was developed and tested using data from 303 Japanese SMEs. The study model was subsequently analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) technique.

The study reveals a nuanced relationship between managerial frames of reference (FoRs) and IMOs. The results confirmed notable congruence between interfunctional market orientation and managers who exhibit a political FoR. They also revealed a positive correlation between professional FoR managers and customer market orientation. Additionally, the findings showed that entrepreneurial FoR managers displayed a significant association with competitive market orientation and Bureaucratic FoR matched with the three types of IMO. Finally, the results indicate that all three forms of IMO have a substantial impact on performance, albeit to varying degrees.

The applicability of our results to multinational corporations (MNCs) has not been evaluated. Since the primary focus was to identify the types of associations among FoR and IMO, the causal pathways and explanatory factors that underpinned these observed relationships were not examined in this study. Additionally, due to the geographical concentration of our sample in Japan, we were unable to conduct tests on the suggested model in other countries to validate and potentially generalize the research findings.

By developing an implicit understanding of the market orientation fit within the organization’s FoR, managers can enhance their understanding of competitors' activities and enable them to respond with greater efficiency.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the rare papers that inspect the relationship between International market orientations and managerial assumptions as well as their effect on performance.

This study aims to explore academic women’s silence from the perspective of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), by examining the triadic influences of the individual, environment and behaviour, which impacts their silence. The study examines how women use personal, proxy and collective agency (Bandura, 2018) to reduce silence.

Interviewing 22 academics (20 women, 2 men) at a leading Polish university, this study used the Gioia et al. (2013) method to analyse the interviews, creating first- and second-order codes and final aggregated concepts.

This study finds, from an environmental perspective, that societal-level gendering, which is underpinned by critical social factors and institutional logics that are part of Poland’s culture promoting gender stereotypes and family values influences women’s silence. There is clear evidence for the regression of women’s rights, which compounds women’s silence. These societal-level factors influence a hierarchical, bureaucratic organizational structure, alongside gender segregation. From an individual perspective, reasons for silence include socialization, fear, women’s lack of power, inequality and self-silencing to mitigate harassment or discrimination. Collective agency was a strongly mentioned theme to help reduce silence, which includes implementing training and development initiatives, creating a safe platform to voice concerns, structural transformation and cultural change.

This study contributes to literature regarding women’s silence by exploring reasons for silence through the lens of Bandura’s social cognitive theory and agentic perspective, which demonstrates how silence could be reduced through collective action, in the understudied context of Poland, which highlights how country context intersects with organizational context and individual experience, influencing women’s silence.

This study aims to investigate the impact of bureaucratic culture on the formulation and content of digital transformation strategies in Swedish local governments.

This research uses a qualitative content analysis method to examine strategy documents from local governments in Sweden. The analysis is focused on identifying concepts related to the definition of digital transformation strategy, organizational culture and agility. Relevant themes and insights were extracted using concept-driven coding.

The research uncovered a significant influence of bureaucratic culture on the content of strategy documents, which manifests through a strong status quo bias. This bias leads to a cautious approach toward digital innovation, limiting strategies to incremental improvements and maintenance of existing processes.

The findings highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of how organizational culture affects digital transformation. The study suggests avenues for further research, particularly in exploring mechanisms to balance bureaucratic stability with digital agility.

The research proposes recommendations for policymakers and public sector managers, advocating for an approach incorporating cultural awareness to foster a more conducive environment for digital transformation within bureaucratic settings.

This study contributes to the field by revealing the nuanced role of bureaucratic culture in shaping digital transformation strategies within the public sector. It offers a unique insight into the Swedish context.

Sociologists have long thought of the integration of people in communities – social integration – and hierarchical social systems – systemic integration – as contradictory goals. What strategies allow organizations to reconcile social and systemic integration? We examine this question through 40 in-depth, longitudinal interviews with leaders of nonprofit organizations that engage in the dual pursuit of social and systemic integration. Two processes reveal how the internal structure of organizations often mirrors the ways in which organizations are embedded in their local environments. When organizations engage in loose demographic coupling, relegating those who “match” the community to the work of social integration, they produce internal inequalities and justify them by claiming community building as sacred work. When engaging in community anchoring, organizations challenge internal and external inequalities simultaneously, but this process comes with costs. Our findings contribute to a constructivist understanding of community, the mechanisms by which organizations produce inequalities, and a place-based conception of organizations as embedded in community.