Organizational and Occupational Analysis

Organizational and Occupational Analysis: This area addresses the social dynamics of organized collective activity, with a focus that extends from large-scale formal bureaucracies to self-employed professionals in the community. Courses and seminars emphasize the importance of the organization as a crucial unit of sociological analysis, with attention both to organizations’ internal structural characteristics and also to the relationships between organizations and their environments. The curriculum also treats selected issues in the social psychology of organizations and the sociology of work, such as the interactions among organizational participants and the linkages between individual workers and larger organizations, occupations and professions. In addition, the Sociology Department offers a number of courses examining the workings of organizations and occupations within specific social institutions, such as education, law, medicine, religion, and the market economy.