Pierre Bourdieu in Studies of Organization and Management by Robinson, Sarah; Ernst, Jette; Larsen, Kristian;

Short description:

There is increasing academic interest in how Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology can be applied to management and organization studies (MOS). This book aims to take a specific focus on the relational nature of Bourdieu’s work and its relevance for contemporary organizations.

Long description:

There is increasing academic interest in how Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology can be applied to management and organization studies (MOS). In a context of increasing complexity faced by organizations and those who work in them due to globalization, neoliberalism, austerity, financial crisis, ecological issues, populism and developing technologies, there is untapped potential to use Bourdieu’s theoretical inventions to arrive at greater understandings of how change, transition and crisis shape work, organizational life as well as relations between different organizational and sectorial fields.

This book aims to take a specific focus on the relational nature of Bourdieu’s work and its relevance for contemporary organizations. It provides empirically-grounded examples that showcase the explanatory strength of Bourdieu´s intellectual concepts, such as field, habitus, capital, hexis, hysteresis, symbolic power, symbolic violence, doxa, illusio as applied to the current challenges within MOS. Such challenges include issues resulting from globalization, neoliberalism, financial crisis, ecological crisis, populism and developing technologies, to name but a few; and added to those, a global pandemic. The twelve chapters presented in this book study a great variety and range of organizational phenomena that are organized into three thematic sections: ‘Neoliberalism, fields and hysteresis’, ‘Global and national movements as sites for competition and symbolic domination’ and the ‘The emergence and transformation of professional fields’. The chapters show a concern with the challenges and opportunities such developments offer to MOS scholars and to managers and employees in public and private sector organizations.

It will be of interest to researchers, academics and students in the fields of organizational studies, critical management studies, human resource management and sociology.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Taking Bourdieu further into studies of Organizations and Management Sarah Robinson, Jette Ernst, Ole Jacob Thomassen, and Kristian Larsen Part I Neoliberalism, fields and hysteresis 1. Caught between times: Explaining resistance to change through the tale of Don Quixote Henrik Koll & Jette Ernst 2. Recalling or Reactivating the Past? A Habitus-based Conceptualization of Temporality in Organizations Ole Jacob Thomassen and Ansgar Ødegård 3. ‘The human bottom line’: New institutionalism and Bourdieu’s field theory on the growing prominence of healthiness in Nordic work organizations Kristian Larsen and Ivan Harsløf Part II Transnational and national movements as sites for competition and symbolic domination 4. Converting capital? A Bourdieu perspective of wasta in careers in the insurance sector in Jordan and the implications for symbolic power Susan Sayce, Mohammad Ta’Amnha and Olga Tregaskis 5. Appropriating symbolic space: the Camp for Climate Action occupation of the Royal Bank of Scotland corporate campus Ron Kerr and Sarah Robinson 6. ‘Capital breeds capital’ – Bourdieu and the Cross-National Importation of Organizational Models Ruomei Yang, Charles Harvey, Frank Mueller and Mairi Maclean 7. Crafting Globalization – A Bourdieusian Historical Approach to Studying International Organizations and Global Governance in Education Christian Ydesen Part III The emergence and transformation of professional fields 8. Professional habitus and fields Erna Nairz-Wirth and Klaus Feldmann 9. Homologies between sets of healthcare professionals’ collaborative working practices in hospitals Anette Hindhede and Vibeke Andersen 10. Structuring the alternative weddings entrepreneurial field in France Paul Lasalle and Eleanor Shaw 11. "You will never be able to be as good as we are": Male midwives’ career boundaries, condition, and chronology Thomas M. Schneidhofer, Stephanie Kainrath and Katrin Preuner 12. In the midst of a storm: forging future paths for Bourdieu inspired Organizational and Management Studies Kristian Larsen, Jette Ernst, Ole Jacob Thomassen and Sarah Robinson