Author: Julia Dessauer

New Publication: “Engineering Inequality”

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Sigrid Luhr. (2024). “Engineering Inequality: Informal Coaching, Glass Walls, and Social Closure in Silicon Valley.” American Journal of Sociology 129(5): 1409-1446. https://doi.org/10.1086/729506

Despite the rise of women’s labor force participation over the last 60 years, the technology industry remains highly segregated by gender. Engineers often think of their work as purely technical. Yet this study highlights the importance of social relationships for career advancement. Drawing on interviews with tech workers, the author traces the unequal career trajectories of men and women. She finds that men without computer science or engineering degrees are informally coached to learn technical skills from their coworkers and transition from nontechnical to technical roles. Women, however, are excluded from these coaching opportunities and steered out of technical roles, effectively barring them from some of the most lucrative positions in the tech industry. These findings highlight new social closure mechanisms that reproduce gender inequality and question whether the educational pipeline can adequately explain women’s underrepresentation in technical roles.

Event: OOW Virtual Panel on Racialized and Gendered Organizations

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Join our lively discussion of the ways sociology can move the study of work and occupations towards more intersectional understandings of inequality at work and in workplaces, in worker’s experiences, and in theoretical and practical diversity.

DATE: Thursday, March 7, 2024
TIME: Noon – 1pm (ET)
LINK: https://wsu.zoom.us/j/99023987599 , Meeting ID: 990 2398 7599

PANELISTS:
Dr. Sharla Alegria, University of Toronto. Her research is primarily concerned with understanding how inequalities, particularly those at the intersections of gender and race persist in institutions and organizations that reject discrimination and make commitments to equity. Her work connects technology, its applications, and the conditions in which it was developed to better understand the persistence of race and gender inequalities in technologies and the workplaces that produce them.

Dr. Koji Chavez, Indiana University. His research is focused on gender and racial inequalities in the labor market and in the workplace. Much of his research centers specifically on discrimination in the hiring process, trends in discrimination, and is developing a theory of diversity commodification which explains how the corporate drive to diversify the workforce affects patterns of gender and racial discrimination in software engineering hiring.

Maritess Escueta, University of Delaware. Her research considers how workplace organizations reproduce gender and racial inequality, particularly in the tech industry. Her current research project examines how formalized performance evaluation processes are used to maintain race, class, and gender divisions between workers.

Bonnie Siegler, Columbia University. She studies diversity and equity discourses in education and DEI work and workers in schools. Her dissertation investigates U.S. school district commitments to racial equity in 2020 and the relationship between racial equity statements and organizational legitimacy.

Moderated by Dr. Julie Kmec, Washington State University

CFP: Medici Summer School in Management

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The Medici Summer School in Management Studies, Bologna, June 23-June 28, 2024
We are pleased to announce the organization of the 16th edition of the Medici Summer School in Management Studies for doctoral students and young researchers, which will be held in Bologna, June 23-June 28, 2024. The school is organized and sponsored by Bologna Business School (University of Bologna), HEC Paris (Society and Organizations Research Center and the HEC Foundation), and MIT Sloan School.

The Summer School is designed to promote doctoral education and research in organization theory and related fields (economic sociology, management studies, strategy) and contribute to the development of enlightened practice in the management of business organizations. The Summer School is a unique educational program for qualified doctoral students interacting with thought leaders in the management field who will share their knowledge and wisdom on frontier research topics.
The title of the 2024 edition is:

Space and Place in Organizational Thinking

The Summer School combines lectures and research seminars by international scholars with an active engagement of participant students.

Confirmed faculty members:

  • Juan Alcacer (Harvard)
  • Emilio J. Castilla (MIT Sloan)
  • Mercedes Delgado (CBS)
  • Rodolphe Durand (HEC Paris)
  • Simone Ferriani (University of Bologna & City, University of London)
  • Catherine Magelssen (LBS)
  • Abhishek Nagaraj (Berkeley Haas)
  • Nathan Wilmers (MIT Sloan)
  • Ezra Zuckerman Sivan (MIT Sloan)

The school will be convened by Bologna Business School (Bologna).

Application procedure           
Applications are welcome from current Ph.D. students in Management, Strategy, Organization Theory, Economic Sociology, and related disciplines from universities worldwide. Students for the Summer School will be selected in accordance with the quality of their doctoral curricula, research interests, and application materials.  Applications from students who have completed at least two years of doctoral training will be considered, with preference given to those who have satisfied their course requirements and exams but have not yet embarked on their dissertation research.  Applications from post-docs will also be considered.
 
There is no application or participation fee. Student participants will be responsible for covering their own travel expenses to and from Bologna, but the Summer School will cover accommodation and board expenses during the week of sessions.

The deadline for applications is March 20th, 2024. Admitted candidates will be notified by April 12. A waiting list of other candidates will be established.

Full program and application details can be found at:

https://www.bbs.unibo.eu/xiii-medici-summer-school/

New Book: The Employable Sociologist

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The Employable Sociologist: A Guide for Undergraduates by Martha A. Martinez

This book addresses a gap in and outside academia: how to help Sociology undergraduates develop skills for career success while maintaining a sociologically rigorous approach. Matching sociological theories, methods, and knowledge with contemporary capitalistic managerial and work practices, it shows how sociology undergraduates are not only employable but have marketable advantages over graduates of other disciplines. A student following the program embodied in this book will actively nurture a strong sociological identity; create a job search plan integrating personal and disciplinary interests, values, and skills; design job application materials that provide the best fit for specific jobs and organizations; and launch a satisfying career path. Beyond an employment guide, it will facilitate the teaching of career development by Sociology faculty; increase students’ ongoing confidence in their potential; and provide a solid foundation for communicating the transformative power of Sociology to employers and managers in the government, business, and non-profit sectors.

Link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-41323-0#about-this-book

Job Posting: Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Policy, Colby College

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The Department of Sociology at Colby College is searching for a postdoctoral fellow in public policy to start September 1, 2024. The fellow will teach three courses in the first year of a two-year appointment and four in the second: introduction to policy analysis and other policy courses related to their substantive interests. These courses will provide early career scholars a chance to hone their teaching skills in a selective liberal arts college environment. Fellows will be expected to pursue an active research and publishing agenda and will receive mentoring from senior faculty. The fellow will also have the opportunity to take part in a new public policy colloquium series.

Areas of policy specialization are open. Although the position will be housed in the Department of Sociology, we will consider candidates from other social science disciplines. Candidates may be A.B.D. but a Ph.D. must be in hand prior to September 1, 2024.

A complete application must include: a curriculum vitae; letter of application that explains the candidate’s research and approach to teaching and teaching inclusively; representative samples of scholarship; and three letters of recommendation.

Please submit all of these materials via Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/137995. Review of applications will begin February 12, 2024 and will continue until the position is filled. Questions about this position should be directed to: nlgross@colby.edu

OOW Book Discussion: January 22

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All OOW members are invited to participate in an informal, online discussion of Carolyn Chen’s Work, Pray, Code on January 22nd, 12-1pm EST. The book is a brisk, qualitative study of how work becomes religion in Silicon Valley. The conversation will be “book club style”, with everyone welcome to share ideas. (If you’d like to participate but time is short, focus on the introduction & chapter 4.) 

We hope students and faculty alike come to discuss and meet with fellow OOW members. To register and receive a zoom link, click here.

Questions? Contact Laura Doering (laura.doering@utoronto.ca).

Job Postings: Copenhagen Business School

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Copenhagen Business School invites applications for two open positions in Organization Theory in the Department of Organization. The open positions include a two-year postdoc (with an optional additional third year of teaching) and a three-year assistant professor (with six months of teaching) on Jane Bjørn Vedel’s research program on how large-scale funding impacts organizational forms in higher education.

The successful candidates will work with her team in a collaborative project that aims at generating novel insights on a topic of significant societal importance and publishing them in high-impact journals within Organization and Management Theory. She is looking for candidates who can move to Copenhagen, have good qualitative skills, and who want to join her team in elucidating some of the main drivers of organizational change in academia.

Start date September 1, 2024, and deadline is January 29, 2024.

More information about the positions here:
https://shorturl.at/anAJK
https://shorturl.at/dsAY1

CFP: EGOS After the Crisis (?): Towards a new Politics of Professionalism Under pressure

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Due: Tuesday, January 9, 2024, 23:59:59 CET [Central European Time]

In this sub-theme we take an eco-systems approach to studying shifting state-organization-profession-user (inter)dependencies and their consequences on policy, organization and practice levels. We seek to contribute to the reinvention of professionalism as an increasingly political and economic endeavour, discussing (amongst others) the micro-political practices of priority setting, data-driven surveillance and modelling, economic rationing and repair work, as well as the (conflicting) valuations and accountability regimes these involve. At the same time, we acknowledge that the micro-political dynamics of organising professional work are both constitutive of and framed by wider institutional, ideological and macro-political rationalities.
 
We invite contributions that address the following themes and questions, but we are also interested in related contributions exploring a new politics of professionalism under pressure:

  • What new risks and uncertainties in the organization of expert work and the provision of health and welfare services are emerging in the ‘after-crisis’, and how do they exacerbate and/or create new pressures on professionals and professionalism?
  • What new (inter)dependencies emerge between state-level actors, organizations, professionals, and service users in times of uncertainty, scarcity and austerity and with what kinds of precariousness?
  • Technological innovations and new forms of knowledge create new possibilities, affordances, and challenges. How do professionals and organizations signal and respond to these developments, and how do they shape professionalism as a social and lived phenomenon?
  • How can this emerging set of questions around the micro, meso and macro politics and practices of professionalism be theorized as ‘professionalism under pressure’ in times of uncertainty and precariousness?

Further information: https://www.egos.org/jart/prj3/egos/main.jart?rel=de&reserve-mode=active&content-id=1662944489704&subtheme_id=1669874219503

Short papers should focus on the main ideas of the paper, this means, they should explain the purpose of the paper, theoretical background, the research gap that is addressed, the approach taken, the methods of analysis (in empirical papers), main findings, and contributions. In addition, it is useful to indicate clearly how the paper links with the sub-theme and the overall theme of the Colloquium, although not all papers need to focus on the overall theme. Creativity, innovativeness, theoretical grounding, and critical thinking are typical characteristics of EGOS papers.

Your short paper should comprise 3,000 words (incl. references, appendices and other material). Please take note of the Guidelines and criteria for the submission of short papers at EGOS Colloquia.

Job Posting: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland

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The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland is looking to fill the position of a full professor of sociology with a focus on “micro-organizational sociology” (100%) starting February 1, 2025.

You are responsible for the area of organizational sociology that relates to processes of organizing. In teaching and research, you will contribute to the conceptual-theoretical and empirical development of the field. In your empirical work you approach processes of organizing within and between organizations from a sociological perspective.

The University of Lucerne explicitly encourages qualified female scientists to apply.

Application deadline is January 12, 2024.

For further information, see https://www.unilu.ch/en/university/personnel/human-resources-department/vacancies/full-professor-of-sociology-with-a-focus-on-micro-organizational-sociology-100-1946937/

CFP: SASE Annual Meeting and Network A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations

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Please consider submitting an abstract of about 500 words for an individual presentation or a panel relating to community, democracy, and organizations at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) annual meeting. The conference submission deadline is Jan. 19, 2024. Our 2024 annual meeting will primarily be an in-person conference spanning 3 days in Limerick, Ireland, June 27-29, 2023. For those unable to travel, our network—Network A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations—also have a very limited number of virtual presentation slots in two sessions to be scheduled for June 18-21. (Details about those are here.)

As the organizers of Network A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations, we would be glad to consider any papers on our network’s topics that you wish to submit, in addition to any ideas you have for pre-formed panels with multiple paper presentations, roundtable discussion panels, or book salons (aka Author Meets Critics panels). SASE is an international organization of scholars who study topics related to economic sociology and political economy. Network A focuses on the moral or values-based underpinnings of human thought, practices, and institutions that comprise civil societies, particularly as they relate to the participatory, collectivist, and democratic aspirations of organizations, markets, and other spaces of collaboration and contestation. We examine how communities, enterprises, and societies can be organized around principles of democratic governance or other substantive values that go beyond calculative self-interest and instrumental relations. In particular, we welcome submissions relating to: (1) how groups and initiatives promote social change, through formal organizations, informal groups, prefigurative organizations, decentralized projects, participatory decision-making, and various forms of shared ownership; and (2) how collectivities reinforce prevailing conventions of hierarchical, bureaucratic, and profit-driven organizational structures and markets.

Examples of relevant phenomena include, but are not limited to: affinity groups; anti-oppressive human services; artistic or cultural collectives (including democratic governance and autonomy-respecting practices in creative organizations more broadly); collectively governed commons; community land trusts; community real estate investment cooperatives; community-based economic exchanges; community-run marketplaces; decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs); free schools; giving circles; limited equity housing cooperatives and co-housing; mutual companies and aid networks; open, commons-based, and inclusive innovation and valuation frameworks; participatory budgeting; public-private partnerships; social enterprises; solidarity economies; and worker, producer, or consumer cooperatives, including platform cooperatives.

To learn more about our network and its history, please read here. To join our Network A listserv, visit https://inthefray.org/list.

For more information about the 2024 conference, visit https://sase.org/event/2024-limerick/#submissions.

How to submit to the 2024 SASE annual conference:

If you are interested in presenting in person or virtually, please submit your paper title(s) and abstract(s) to https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/6679/submitter and select “Network A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations” by Jan. 19, 2024.

SASE’s Early Career Workshop brings together PhD students, recent PhDs, and independent scholars who wish to participate in small roundtable discussions of their work with assigned faculty mentors. It is held in person shortly before the SASE annual meeting, with some travel expenses paid. Applicants should submit full papers and other required materials, as specified here, by Jan. 19, 2024.

Please direct any general questions or comments about Network A to sase@inthefray.org.

How to support Network A:

Network A relies entirely on the efforts of volunteer organizers and additional support from colleagues at all stages of their careers. Please consider supporting the growth and sustainability of our community in these and other ways: 

(1) Circulate this cfp to listservs and other potentially interested parties, particularly those who might not have heard of our network or the SASE conference.  

(2) Help us build community at the SASE conference in Limerick, Ireland. Among other things, please send us suggestions for local venues, local organizations, or other groups that might be of interest to our network’s members and that could possibly present at the conference, host field trips for our members, etc.  

(3)  Consider becoming  part of the Network A leadership. There are many ways to help, including by organizing conference panels, social events, and virtual sessions. 

We look forward to reading your submissions!

Best wishes from your SASE Network A organizers,

In-person team

Katherine K. Chen, kchen@ccny.cuny.edu

Victor Tan Chen, vchen@vcu.edu 

Philipp Degens, Philipp.Degens@uni-hamburg.de 

Virtual session team

Joyce Rothschild, joycevt@aol.com 

Marc Schneiberg, schneibm@reed.edu

Coordination team

Paola Ometto, pometto@csusm.edu